


when we all catch fire

by caffeineforum



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst and Feels, Bang Chan & Seo Changbin are Best Friends, Falling In Love, Families of Choice, Fluff, Han Jisung | Han has Anxiety, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Mild Smut, Past Abuse, Romantic Fluff, Seo Changbin is Whipped, Songfic, Strangers to Lovers, Trust Issues, i can ASSURE you this is 99 percent comfort and romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:35:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27733150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caffeineforum/pseuds/caffeineforum
Summary: Just know it feels so good that I could die and join the starsGive me that peace of mind and I'll give you everythingJust stay with me, I'll show you paradiseIt feels so rightThe spark that starts the flame is when Jisung cries in Changbin's arms the first time they meet.Alternatively; Changbin has trust issues, and finds an unexpected muse in Jisung and all of his chaos.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Seo Changbin
Comments: 27
Kudos: 88





	1. you found me in the cold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh hello, what's this? a new fic without me updating my other ones?
> 
> so... the concert happened. and i was reminded about how good jisung's live vocals were. and i was like: "oh, he could totally sing 'catch fire' by periphery!"
> 
> and now here's a fic based on that song. and 'lune', another song off the same album because hey, why not? you should listen to them, ESPECIALLY 'catch fire', and just picture jisung singing it. please, oh my god, it's too good.
> 
> anyways here's soft changbin and stuff

**_// C A T C H F I R E //_ **

**_Lock eyes like we're staring down the barrel of a shotgun_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Appear so quickly_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Leave as swiftly as you came_ **

His teachers said life isn’t all about picturesque moments, it’s about the little things, and yet somehow Changbin finds himself wrapped up in angsty clichés that fit into the borders of polaroid pictures and the state of California.

Well, not California actually. He would die of heatstroke in two seconds, given his wardrobe of sweater-paws and all sorts of black pants in thick fabrics. His burning corpse would smell like tar and copper on the hot asphalt.

And while that certainly has its charm, it fails to compete to the smell of coffee and pastry that he’s inhaling. The tinge of cigarettes is still stuck to the corduroy of his jacket from walking downtown so much, but it doesn’t bother him much anymore.

The warmth slides over him as he sheds his gloves and coat and plops down in a random chair and a random table. A small bossa nova tune plays over the speakers, one on repeat frequently enough that he can hum along to it. Everything feels better as the atmosphere starts to sink into his bones.

“Do I need to smack you?” Chan asks, firing at point blank when he slides the ceramic coaster onto the table, uncaring of the deafening sound it makes. Steam rises from the mug, in contrast with the snow that falls in the city lights outside. Up and down, hot and cold.

Changbin follows it up to Chan’s eyes and cocks his head sideways. “Uh, I hope not? Why would you need to smack me?”

Instead of answering, Chan searches Changbin’s coat (just keys), then invasively reaches into his jean pockets (just his wallet), and then rummages in the backpack he’d planted on the other side of the table (just a random assortment of books, sketchbook included). Not wanting to question him, Changbin just sips his hot cocoa and licks the froth off his chapped lips, watching with mild curiosity.

Chan’s brows are furrowed and his lip juts out, the former a sign of concern and the latter a sign of worry. After so many years of having each other’s backs, Changbin knows every little quirk that his older friend has. When he’s lying, when he’s sad, when he’s annoyed versus when he’s legitimately about to throw fists. 

Their closeness is palpable to him when there’s no words between them, alone. He doesn’t even need to actively think about it to acknowledge it, like the sap he is. Social Chan becomes quiet and calm, shy Changbin opens up his body language for reading. They’re balanced like that.

Hot and cold.

Chan slumps, seeming like he hasn’t found what he’s looking for. “Did you start smoking?” he finally asks. A car drives by, and when the headlights flow into the cafe, Changbin can see how tired he is in a way the emergency lights don’t show. 

“No, I had to walk by an entire crowd of smokers on the sidewalk earlier,” he says, scrunching his nose when he remembers how nasty it was. “I think I have cancer now. I hate this city”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Chan pats his back and sits next to him, pulling out his own water bottle. The silence they fall into sounds like mutual exhaustion, and it makes Changbin realize just how much his ears are ringing.

Be a literature major, it’ll be fun, right? Double-major in art, it’ll be so fun.

“You know, I really want to drop out,” he mumbles. He shifts his sleeves over his hands to protect them from the heat of his mug. “You think your mom will make me your assistant-assistant manager if I ask nicely enough?”

“She would, but don’t do that,” Chan mumbles right back. “Be glad midterms are over and relax, okay? Let the tension just ooze from your shoulders like you just cut into a behemoth of an inflamed cyst.”

“That’s a fucking mental image.”

“I know, right?”

Midterms being over somehow didn’t take any stress off of Changbin’s shoulders, and being reminded doesn’t either. It’s stripping all the fun out of reading when he’s reading for a class and not for himself. Another two years is going to leave him baked and dry.

Distantly, they hear police sirens coming closer and then moving away. Downtown-bound, as always.

“Yeah but I still have more midterms and finals in the future,” he sighs. “I’m fucking sick of it. Get me out of there. I have to write another comparative essay, I might actually cry again. I hate it.”

“Look, if I can survive business, you can survive too. I believe in you. You have all the free coffee you need here to help you get through it.”

“Okay,” Changbin says, looking down at the frothy swirl Chan haphazardly drew in the chocolatey foam. 

If only it was so easy to just survive the constant expectations and need for effort. It ruined winter for him. The crunch time, the reminder than after the holidays there’s just more work waiting for him… he hates it.

He isn’t kidding when he says he just wants to work here, with Chan and his mother, and not have to worry about education. It’s not like he doesn’t already paint all their special seasonal mugs. He does the best latte designs of any of the employees. He paints the Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s, and Easter artwork in the windows every year--does all the decorating too.

And it’s his greatest joy. To draw and to read, to make or consume any bit of art. Yet here he is, a university student, and an ungrateful one at that. There’s no system where students can give their full-rides to someone else if they don’t want it, so he’s just there because why let the opportunity go to waste?

He hates it. He lets it rob him of his quiet needs. It stresses him and messes him up, and yet there he is, still enduring it all and acting like encouraging words do anything to ease it.

The sudden anxiety must show on his face, because Chan scoots his chair over and throws an arm around him. He sighs, leaning on his friend’s shoulder and staring at the words _‘Gone Days Coffee &Goods’ _ printed backwards in the window. 

And then, there’s a face in the window.

Well, not a face, but definitely a “ _someone_ ”.

The both of them jump when another person, swaddled up in a giant scarf, parka, and hat, knocks profusely on the glass. Their mitts muffle it, but the force they use pushes past the fabric. 

Chan and Changbin look at each other, then back at the person.

They wave their arms frantically. _“I need your help!”_ they say, barely audible through their scarf and the window. _“Please?!”_

“Should I let them in?” Chan asks, looking understandably worried.

They aren’t in a bad area, per se. Upper-downtown isn’t as bad as actual-downtown, even if the crowd sometimes shifts towards them. The police actually do their patrols around these blocks. There hasn’t been a break-in around here in years.

 _“Come on guys, please!”_ the stranger yells again. Changbin notices the way they’re jittery, and they keep looking off to the left anxiously. _“Please…”_

“Yeah, I think we should,” Changbin says, standing up.

And just like that, Chan is up and unlocking the door, quickly stepping back.

He only narrowly dodges the stranger stumbling in. “Do you have a back room, or something?” they say while breathing harder than Changbin’s heard anyone breath in his whole life. Their voice is weirdly indistinguishable, from the croaking and the absurdly fluffy wine-coloured scarf.

“Yeah, come on.” Changbin puts a hand on their back and guides them around the counter. Chan locks the door again and follows, jogging ahead and opening the door to the office for them.

Before Changbin has a chance to react, the stranger stumbles onto the floor. Their knees sound like they crack against the hardwood, and he can’t help but wince. “Oh thank _God_ ,” they huff, sliding curling up into a ball against the wall across from the door. “Thank you so much, _fuck-_ ”

They wrench the fabric from their body almost desperately, like a last-ditch prison break attempt. First their fur-lined hood, then their hat, then their scarf, and then their coat comes off entirely. 

The person revealed is someone, a dude, who definitely isn’t older than either of them unless by a miracle. Slim jaw, puffy cheeks, wide eyes, and wild black hair. He’s thin as all hell and small, so fucking small with the way he brings his knees to his chest and shakes violently. His hands are the worst of it, the tremors so intense you’d think his bones are crossing over one another like tectonic plates.

What sticks out the most though, is his puffy lips and red eyes, and the way they quiver. Tears come down in a steady stream, and Changbin feels both worry and relief--relief for the fact that they decided to let him in. Whatever led him to look like this, hopefully he’s genuinely out of reach now.

“Hey,” Chan speaks first, kneeling next to him. “I’m Chan. Do you want tea? Water? Anything to drink?” 

“Um, I’m Han,” the boy answers. He stutters a little, and lets out a shaky breath. “Chai with honey? You really don’t have to, honestly, thank you for offering-”

Chan smiles and nods. “Coming right up then.” He smiles, standing up again and rubbing Changbin’s shoulder on the way out, shutting the door.

And then there were two.

“I’m Changbin.” He goes and slides down the wall next to Han. It’s awkward, being so close to a crying stranger, but he puts on his best smile and tries anyway. Because as horrible as it sounds, Han really does seem pathetic right now. “Do you need a hug?”

Without an answer, Han scoots over a little and leans on his shoulder tentatively. To which Changbin wraps an arm around him, pulling him kindly into his side. It’s weird. He doesn’t know enough to like being this close. But he doesn’t want to be an asshole.

“Thank you,” the boy sniffles.

“Wanna talk about it?” Changbin offers. He tries not to wince when Han’s nose makes an awful rippling noise in an attempt to not get snot everywhere. Mental note, have Chan fetch napkins.

“No but yes.” He sounds petulant and whiney, but in a cute way, Changbin notices. “Trying to get away from my ex-boyfriend.”

“Do…” Changbin trails off, looking at the phone on the desk, “...I need to call the cops, or…?”

“I already did, a while ago. They didn’t do anything.”

Changbin frowns, maybe the police in the area aren’t as great as he assumed from the lack of their window being broken for a while. 

Unprompted, Han answers all the questions swirling in his head. “I spent a lot of time getting away from him, like, a year ago. And it worked. And I heard he’d been doing a lot better, mentally, so when he ran into me in the mall and started talking to me I was nice, you know? And then he started threatening me when I tried leaving to go home--he said he knows where I live now too and he _wouldn’t stop following me_ -”

  
  


“Hey, hey, breathe.” His breath starts picking up again--Changbin hadn’t noticed how much he’d calmed down, honestly--and the words tumble out at record speed. He catches all of it, though, and even though Han is a stranger, he can’t help the anger that bubbles inside him. “Breathe in--just copy me, okay?--now, breathe in…”

He inhales, purposeful and slow. His hands hold the sides of Han’s head, softly covering his ears just enough that it should help him focus. Should--that’s the key word. Changbin just knows what helps himself and he’s hoping, praying, it will work right now.

Luckily, Han only takes three or four tries before he starts to follow his lead. Each attempt is shaky, rusted over and stuck. But they rub oil on the squeaky hinges and slowly but surely, he gets better. And better.

Breathe in… (one… two… three… four… five…)

Breathe out… (one… two… three… four… five…)

Breathe in…

Changbin forgot how much of a process it is to get something from a rumbling earthquake to as still as a calm pond. He’s been on the receiving end of it all lately, midterms and lifelong issues and all, and where he is right now is usually where Chan sits.

But he finds himself calming down alongside Han, and when he thinks of it like that the progress starts to speed up. Soon enough, they’re breathing in sync. Changbin’s so zoned out and accustomed to it all, he’s pretty sure Han’s been still for over a minute. And yet he still follows Changbin’s guide.

Something about that is cute. His eyes are closed. Changbin smiles even though he isn’t being seen, because it’s just _cute_ . Sure, there’s tear stains and concerning redness, and there’s lingering shakes here and there. But everything else is oddly… just… _cute_?

And then, Han looks up at him. 

Changbin swears it’s accompanied by singing angels and fluffy clouds.

Eyes wide, bleary, but unmistakably adorable behind it all. It feels like he’s being shot, repeatedly, every second that goes by. And every primal instinct to protect, to keep safe, rises up inside him in a flash. Rips any apprehension away from him and leaves him at his most bare, most willing self. Terrifyingly quickly, at that.

Those are eyes anyone could easily love as if it were as natural as breathing. Deep, unrelenting eyes. Ones you can’t help but _want_ to get lost in even if, like the barrel of a gun, they only lead to demise.

Something tells him that’s not the case here, though.

“You’re safe here, okay?” He ruffles his hair reassuringly, as if he were one of his younger friends. “We’ve got you--you did so good at breathing, so just keep that up, okay?”

“Okay,” Han croaks. Changbin is starting to feel guilty, constantly thinking everything this stranger does is cute when it’s sad. “Thank you, honestly-”

“This is the least we can do.” It certainly isn’t, they could be doing much less right now. But knowing himself and Chan, this might as well be below the bare minimum. “Seriously, don’t worry about it.”

Han just nods, and everything goes quiet for a bit. Just breathing, in and out. In and out. There’s only a few neck cracks here and there to disturb the peace, before Changbin remembers that there are important things to think about. 

Then he breaks the silence, a slight echo in the otherwise still room.

“Do you need us to take you somewhere for the night? Like a friend’s house?”

Han whimpers and shakes his head. “You’re so nice to me,” he says, sounding so small and sad it gives Changbin physical pain. “But, he’s probably going to try and find me at their-- _oh my God_ , I need to tell them-”

He scrambles for his coat, juggling it and fumbling until he whips out his phone. And he types as fast as he talks--Changbin watches him copy-paste a lengthy explanation to two people in what can’t be more than thirty seconds. It’s impressive, if he ignores how awful it is that he has to warn his friends about his ex.

“Do you have a relative we can take you to?” he asks, when Han heaves a sigh of relief and locks his phone again.

The boy just shakes his head. “They’re in Malaysia.”

Interesting, but not exactly helpful.

“Do you just want us to take you home, then?”

“He’ll find me if I go back.”

Changbin sighs, and looks at Han. Closely. Straight into the eyes that shot him so unexpectedly.

He has the deepest eyes imaginable--nearly black. They’re wide and innocent. His nose and his eyebrows are so straight and narrow they almost make a T-shape out of each other. And his upper lip is also narrow, but the lower one is pouty and full. 

Honestly, Changbin thinks he looks like a kitten, with his facial features more prominent than the actual size of his head. Maybe it’s just the dejected way he looks from crying, or the way the black hoodie he’s wearing swallows him like it’s a whale and he’s one lonely plankton.

Changbin is shy, that’s a fact. There’s no disputing that. But Han reminds him of the kids they work with that he and Chan proverbially adopted.

It makes him soften up a little too quickly. Even more than he already had.

“Chan-”

“Yes, yes, I’m here,” Chan giggles, quickly coming in with a steaming take-out cup. It smells like heaven, but it goes straight into Han’s hands as Chan sits down with them. “You feelin’ better kid?”

“Thank you--yeah, I feel a bit better.” He nods eagerly, taking a careful sip of the tea to check the temperature before downright inhaling it. The scents of cinnamon and honey are pungent. 

“He’s running from his ex,” Changbin explains. “Cops didn’t do shit, asshole knows where he and his friends all live and he has nowhere to go.”

Chan gives him a look, and raises an eyebrow.

Changbin nods.

“Han, did you want to spend the night here while we figure something out?” Chan offers, oh-so-eloquently with an irrefutable smile. He places a firm hand on his knee, face bright and welcoming despite the bags under his eyes. “We’re just upstairs and we have an extra room, if you feel comfortable with that.”

When Han starts crying again, it’s hard to blame him.  
  
  
  
  


Chan has always been too kind, and it rubbed off on Changbin like an infectious disease. Because Changbin really can’t see himself ever letting a stranger into his home, his safe place, for an entire night, unless Chan’s also in the picture. 

The only people they let stay in their spare bedroom are their so-called kids. Felix’s earrings are littered on the dresser because he has a bad habit of forgetting them the moment he takes them out. Jeongin’s plushies are there for free use on sad nights, and Seungmin has some leftover textbooks from his previous years still tucked away under the bed. 

And no, Changbin doesn’t still dust them, of course not.

He’s not _that_ invested.

So Han wearing the spare pajamas they keep in that room? It’s weird. It’s weird when Chan tucks him in like he would any of their friends, leaving a bottle of water on the bedside table and telling him where each of their rooms are if he needs anything.

To their credit, Han certainly looks a lot better than he did earlier. But in the baggy clothes it’s a little too obvious how thin and pale he is. Changbin thinks he has the most prominent veins on any non-muscular person he’s ever seen. He might be giving him and Chan a run for their money--and his dark circles stick out even more now that his skin isn’t red and puffed up. 

They cooked him ramen and watched as he ate it like it was his last supper. Maybe that was when Changbin really started to suspect that there’s some sort of lie woven into the story Han told him. He’s not going to try and pull out the thread, just content that they can do anything to make this random boy feel better.

It seems like it’s working too, so that’s good.

He opened up a little more--he’s the same age as their kids, his name is actually Jisung and Han’s his surname, and he likes anime. He cries easily and it’s evident in the way he tears up again when Chan tells him to get some rest and that he doesn’t need to worry about leaving in the morning. That they’ll figure something out and keep him safe. He even promises it.

“You shouldn’t make big promises,” Changbin reminds him as they step out of the room, leaving Jisung buried under a mountain of blankets and pillows. “What if we can’t do anything?”

“We can still try to do something,” Chan insists. He plops on their living room couch with a solid thud a second before Changbin does, and looks up at him with pouty eyes. “The poor kid is hurting.”

“I know, but we don’t know him.” Changbin’s face finds its way to his hands because he knows, he knows damn well how Chan’s thinking and feeling. He doesn’t feel much different himself, but rationality is the key thing here. “I’m not saying to not try and help but don’t _promise_ it. I like helping people with you too but you can’t set expectations for them and yourself like that.”

“I hate when you’re logical,” Chan huffs.

Changbin shrugs. He lets himself sink into the couch, silently wishing it would swallow him whole. Making logical choices never really got him anywhere, not that Chan would ever earnestly believe that. “I know, me too.”

“You’re okay with him staying here though, right?” 

If there’s one thing that could summarize Chan, it would be the word ‘compassion’. The constant need to lend a hand, an ear, and a small to everyone. A shoulder to cry on, a twenty-dollar bill to buy lunch, or an extra bed or couch to crash on. Trying to separate Chan from his constant and unfiltered _goodness_ is like trying to convince yourself that black coffee is sugary sweet.

And that always extends to Changbin and his comfort. It’s nice, how Chan never lets himself expect him to be okay with something. Even if the answer will be an obvious yes.

“Yeah, of course.” He pats Chan on the back, and smiles. “I just don’t want you to set too high a standard for yourself. You’re only human.”

“I think there’s something more going on with him.” Changbin feels Chan’s breath on his neck as his friend leans on his shoulder. It takes a moment before he settles his weight in fully. Changbin hums, slinging an arm around him and resting his fingers on his clavicle. “Is that just me or do you feel it too?”

“Yeah, I don’t know if he was lying about what he told me, but,” he runs his free hand through his hair, pursing his lips at the greasy feeling, “I think he’s not okay. Just, in general.”

And then, in true Chan fashion, he speaks exactly what Changbin thinks. So accurately it should be scary. “He kind-of reminds me of the kids, like Jeongin,” he says. “I almost gave him a forehead kiss when we tucked him in. It’s so weird.”

“Tell me about it,” Changbin chuckles. “But thank God you didn’t do that--that would’ve been extremely creepy for him.”

“Unfortunately. Hey, you want some wine? It’s still pretty early.”

There’s nothing utterly spectacular about the life Changbin leads with Chan. Sure, they have a wonderful industrial apartment with the most amazing brick wall accents and pipes. Sure, they’re right above the café where they work and sure, thanks to his friendship Changbin has a fun and easy career path laid out for him with all the financial security he could ask for. 

When Changbin lets himself get comfortably buzzed on white wine, it’s only natural to think back on everything. The choices that led him to be so… domestic. Comfortable. Settled, grounded, whatever word best fits the chapter in his story he’s on right now.

His life is the opposite of spectacular, and it only gets more boring and more sad each time he reminisces up to the dog-eared page. 

But it’s a quiet life, nonetheless. Or maybe just simple. Either way, he likes it. The lack of variables, at the end of the day, is comforting. Shenanigans are limited to the stunts their friends pull, and that’s okay. As long as he can make reasonable predictions about the big, important things, and prepare for them, that’s all he needs. It comes down to stability. He’s got the first three blocks of Maslow’s hierarchy down-pat. 

He likes to put emphasis on the second one.

Security is something he never really got to enjoy before high school ended. Maybe Jisung pinched a certain personal nerve, maybe Changbin’s just taken too much of Chan’s altruism onto himself.

Regardless, he wants to pass the sense of security on.

That just proves to be difficult when, the next morning, Jisung is gone without even a note left behind.

  
  


**_//_ **

**_Sometimes I wish I had the measure of a wise man_ ** **_  
_ ** **_But I set the mood, I plant the tomb and bury all the bones within_ **

  
  


Winter comes and goes, sometimes in flurries and other times in blizzards. 

The jingle bells fall silent, the fireworks fade out from the sky, and the little heart-painted mugs Changbin made and packaged in pairs all sell.

He watches in real time and ledgers as the price of eggnog rises again and candy canes disappear from _Gone Days_ ’ seasonal stock. Polaroid photos taken by Chan’s mom document every bright celebration, and Changbin tucks them away along with moments of quiet contemplation in his mental scrapbook.

To say he mourns winter’s passing is an understatement. He could watch the snowfall in the city lights for hours with his headphones in. The cozy scented candles, the sugary hot-cocoa flavours, the little kindnesses people felt more prone to giving in the holiday season, and the languidness of the world. 

Even though it stays cold long into spring, it’s not quite the same. Winter itself is as brief as the snowflakes it claims.

Yet every winter memory clings to him for so much longer.

Including the night he met Jisung, and knew him for less than twelve hours.

Changbin can’t say he’s happy that Jisung never came back.

He thinks about Jisung when they take the Christmas lights down, wondering if he was able to celebrate it with his friends he mentioned.

He thinks about Jisung again on New Years’. Chan drunkenly kisses him and they laugh to the sound of their Frank Sinatra vinyl record scratching. And at 12:05, Changbin wonders if Jisung was laughing with someone, too.

He thinks about Jisung’s cute eyes on Valentine’s Day. He can’t remember them all that well, but he’s inspired so he sketches himself kissing a boy whose back is turned, who’s thin and featureless. 

It’s less embarrassing, knowing that Chan wonders too.

Even as the days get longer and the slush and ice eventually dissipate from the roads, they try to speculate what happened to their chai-drinking stranger, with dark circles and prominent veins.

How can they not, when they were meaning to protect him?

“You’re drawing sad stuff again.”

Changbin doesn’t flinch anymore when Chan’s mom, Sumin, looks over his shoulder. He doesn’t cover up his art, rather just keeps drawing the warm rain coming down within the frame of the café window. A large dog, drenched, looks up towards a man with an umbrella who extends his hand. Not exactly what Changbin would describe as sad. Moreso melancholic, and hopeful. 

But Sumin is a ball of sunshine in human form, so anything related to rain and clouds tends to make her assume sadness. At least, that’s the theory he has.

“It’s not sad,” he says. “Do you need me to cover a break, eomma?”

“No, I’m just checking up on my favourite son,” she giggles, a little loudly. Chan definitely heard it from the counter, and when Changbin looks up he sees him pouting cutely at them. “Have you eaten lunch yet?”

He looks down after wiggling his eyebrows at his playfully distraught friend. “No, I’m waiting for Chan to go on break.” 

“I’ll send him in five minutes then.” They look at the clock together, 1:55pm. Changbin nearly has to stifle a groan knowing that he’ll be sat in a lecture hall in just over two hours--at least its his psychology elective that he actually finds interesting. He doesn’t think he can handle any more of his major courses after forcing himself to read cosmic horror for an essay series. “You want anything special, dear?”

“No, just the usual.” Changbin can’t help but beam up at her. “Thank you, eomma.”

She walks away with a coo and a ruffle to his hair, and he flips backwards to a page in his sketchbook he has reserved just for her.

‘Bang Sumin’, written in both Hangul and cursive Roman characters is the title, and throughout last year he had been filling the paper with sketches of her. There’s a single leftover space in the corner, and he watches her to figure out what to fill it with.

He has drawings of her making coffee at her large espresso machine, writing emails on the office computer, drinking tea cross-legged on the cushioned armchair he’s currently sat on. One is a close-up of her face--with and without glasses and a bright smile--that she’d sat still for after he’d shyly asked her if he could use her as practice. 

There’s her doing yoga, that he constantly references for female anatomy. He even captured her in her most natural habitat, with a book at a breakfast table with a steaming fried egg covered in pepper.

It would be creepy, if he didn’t have pages like this for everyone. Chan lounging around and exercising, Felix dancing and rollerblading, Seungmin studying and learning guitar, and Jeongin doing the most incredulous poses and his bright smile plastered on everything. 

Changbin really thinks he’s captured it all. He even has a page for the small clique of girls Sumin hired--mostly Ryujin, though, because Yeji loves to photograph her. And Changbin will tag along to the shoots, sketching the poses while Yeji captures them digitally.

When he looks up, Chan has disappeared but Sumin is behind the counter. She has a bright smile while talking to a customer, with her hands preoccupied with his and Chan’s lunch. Her crows feet appear just slightly, and the laugh lines from her nose to the corners of her mouth are prominent. 

It’s hard for Changbin to deny the admiration he has for her kindness--the same kindness he adores so much in his best friend. She’s the strongest and bravest person he knows, too. Sometimes he forgets how young she is for Chan’s age, but the youthful and happy look on her face should be a constant reminder. 

He decides to fill the last space with her smiling as she cuts vegetables on a cutting board. He doesn’t shy away from the wrinkles she’s amassed, not from age but from how often she grins. 

Really, there’s no one other than Sumin he’d be proud to call his mother.

“Dude, stop drawing my mom,” Chan teases, pulling up another armchair on the other side of the small coffee table. 

Changbin hums, and shrugs, not looking away from his book.. “How do you know I’m drawing your mom?”

“Because you keep looking between her and your book.” The smell of Chan’s vanilla latte is a little overbearing, screaming over the other fresh smells in the currently quiet shop. Changbin finds himself sketching the pattern of the steam into Sumin’s hair.

He rolls his eyes “This is my last sketch of her on this study page,” he says with a tongue pop, glancing at Chan who rolls his shoulder under his own firm grip. “Don’t act like I don’t have almost three pages worth of you, and some of them are _nude_. Besides, she’s my mom, too.” 

“It’s different,” Chan whines.

“So I shouldn’t make a portrait of her for her birthday? Noted. Shame, I thought she’d really like it…” Changbin drawls sarcastically, laughing when Chan huffs and pouts at him.

“You’re evil,” is all he says in rebuttal.

When Changbin makes a point of saying ‘eomma’ as much as possible when Sumin brings them lunch, she plays along and they laugh at Chan. And this is what Changbin calls his family.

  
  
  


Inevitably, though, he finds himself away from that family, from the giggles and the warm mugs, and in the evil clutches of his university campus.

It’s a lovely campus, don’t get him wrong. It’s circular and easy to navigate with a large park in the middle, with trees and fountains. And at this time of spring, when the weather actually starts to heat up, everyone is out in full force with the picnic blankets, sandwiches, apple juice, and cardigans. The fine line between warm enough for outdoor activities and too cold for bugs and flies to make their dreaded comeback.

After the gross, sludgy partition between winter and spring, he actually likes this part of the cycle.

It’s this short time of year, tucked randomly within the three-month span of March to May, that Changbin switches from wearing exclusively black to only pastels and light-coloured pants. His hair is brown instead of his signature midnight blues and blacks, and it’s a special, commemorative sort of time for him.

Today’s colours are blue and white, for his cowl-neck sweater and his dress pants respectively. And if people take notice, they’re at least courteous enough to not say anything.

That’s something Changbin actually likes about university, compared to high school.

“Hyung, you and Seungmin are matching!” is the first thing Felix says when he makes it to the lecture hall, scooting into his seat in the row their friend group claimed all the way back in September. That’s another thing he likes--everyone silently assigning their own seats rather than the teacher dictating everything. “I look like a third wheel.”

He’s right, they are matching. Except Seungmin’s clean, ironed pants are blue and his sweater is white. So they’re inverted. Which, honestly, is a little bit sweeter than just completely matching. Seungmin would probably throw a fit if he looked like Changbin, anyways.

“Do either of you work tonight? Please say yes,” he asks, sitting down without forgetting to give Felix a soft scratch on the nape of his neck, affectionately. The younger lets out a pleased hum. “I need company.”

They both shake their heads. “We both close tomorrow, though!” Felix adds, as cheerful as ever. There’s a reason Chan calls him ‘sunshine’, and why that’s his name in their group chat, and why even strangers compare him to Funshine Bear. His deep voice has a tendency to pitch up, almost childlike, and it’s impossible to not smile whenever he talks. “Do you think we could stay the night and we can all work on our essays together?”

“Sure, if Chan doesn’t say no,” Changbin clicks his tongue, already knowing what the answer will be. “So, yeah, you can.”

It’s just a well-known fact that Chan never says no to their friends coming over. Especially not Felix. The day he says the word ‘no’ to anything Felix asks of him, that will probably be the day that the sky rains orange juice, or something equally ridiculous. 

Seungmin’s eyes sparkle with an idea--the most precious trait of his that he and Chan will honestly never shut the fuck about. “Can I invite Jeongin?”

Changbin shrugs, even though he knows that the little demon brings chaos everywhere he pops up. “I don’t see why not.”

Jeongin is still in high school, but Felix and Seungmin drag him around the university campus and make sure he’s dressed all pretty, committing hair-dye tragedies and experiments on him so you’d never pick him out as a kid. He’s a heathen underneath a disguise of eye-smiles and besides Felix, he might be Changbin’s favourite boy to draw. He’s yet to truly capture the mischief in his eyes, though. Only the cute and cool facades he hides his chaos behind.

Bringing Jeongin over to study has a split chance of either going exactly as intended, or being roped into an adventure. And adventure, in this sense, usually means something idiotic that results in scrapped knees and running from the cops. Beer, and laughing until his lungs give out. And Chan, incapable of saying no to them no matter how responsible he tries to be, at least always gets them out of trouble before they’re caught in a storm.

Those are the picturesque kind of moments that Changbin was told he’d never experience. Well, fuck the world, because he’s one call away from making memories whenever he wants.

But, again, making memories with Jeongin doesn’t really align with the idea of studying and being productive.

Luckily, Felix voices exactly what he’s thinking, with a throaty laugh added like a cherry on top. “Well then homework definitely isn’t getting done.”

“No, I think Jeongin mentioned having trouble with his current math unit,” Seungmin says. He gets brighter and brighter the more they talk about hanging out, and if it’s anything, it’s relatable. University doesn’t sting as much when you’re toughing out the burn with others. “So Chan will just help him with that.”

“Wow, we stan productivity in this friendship,” Felix says.

And to that, Seungmin snorts. “Productivity? Never heard of her.”

“Well, let me introduce you to her gracious majesty sometime, then.”

“While we’re at it…” Changbin pouts and tilts his head, looking Felix dead in the eyes. Using his own puppy-dog eyes against him--a trick he’s come to master on everyone except demonic little Jeongin. Baby-voice included. “Felix, could I sketch some poses of you again for anatomy?”

Felix bats his eyelashes right back and raises his voice into a similar anime school girl tone. His black sweater bundles up into paws resting under his chin. “Only if you make them pretty!”

Changbin makes a sound akin to saying ‘uwu’, with a puff of his cheeks. He too, makes sweater paws, copying Felix’s poses and pretending to ignore their other friend’s noise of disgust. “It’s you, of course it will be pretty!”

“Cringe,” Seungmin sighs, head in his hands. “You’re both so cringe.”

If they attack Seungmin with baby talk before the professor walks in and starts the lecture, it’s warranted, and no one comes to save him.

  
  
  


Changbin doesn’t know why he lingers in the lecture hall just a bit longer than the other two. He just has to finish the Summiko Gurashi doodle along the side of his notes, even though he doesn’t know what quite compels him too.

His headphones are in, but no music plays. Not yet, he’s too focused to pick out a song. Again, if you asked him why, he wouldn’t be able to give you a reason. People often do inexplicable things--they’re doing a biological-psychology unit right now, so that’s a question for the professor, not him.

You might have to wait to ask, though, because the professor is occupied. Changbin doesn’t see or even hear when someone walks into the lecture hall after everyone else has mostly left, save a few other stragglers. The soft thuds of sneakers on the carpeted ramp can be felt, but right now there’s tunnel vision on small, penciled Fukurou and Suzume trying to fly.

The conversation, though, is a little more tough to ignore. It’s a male voice, one that sounds oddly familiar but Changbin can’t quite pinpoint it. A small “hello!” and the sound of a chuckle and what must be a manly hug, before the professor’s booming voice echoes through the room.

“So, everything’s okay now? You can come back to school?”

“Yeah, who would’ve thought the legal process would take so long? It was really annoying, and the witness protection officers were such a pain in the _ass_ to deal with-”

Changbin swears he knows that voice, but when he looks up all he sees is someone in a black hoodie, hair-covered, back turned to him. His professor is looking down at him with such a fond smile, you would think he’s looking at his own child.

“I’m just happy to see you back, kid. A lot of us in the faculty were worried about you when your lawyer sent out that email, you know?”

“Well, I’m resuming next semester but I just thought I’d drop in and say hi, because that’s like, half a year away. And I missed you, I really did!”

“You look so much healthier, too! I’m proud of you, kid, what you went through wasn’t easy. I have to go meet with my TAs, but stop by as often as you’d like, okay? We’re all here to help you, so just let me know if you need any support going into next semester.”

“Ah, thanks, prof! I’ll see you around.”

The boy turns around, and Changbin thinks he’s a fucking idiot for not recognizing Jisung’s voice.

Then again, the one night they met, he was sobbing and even when he calmed down, he was hushed and shy. That’s not the Jisung he just heard, or the one he’s looking at, now. Because that Jisung was a pale, shrivelled-up looking kid. Scared, and small.

This one is glowing like the summer horizon. From a tiny, dim star in the sky to the one the world might as well revolve around.

His skin has darkened a little, and even at a distance it’s obvious that his cheeks aren’t as gaunt, nor are his dark circles as prominent. He struts--fucking struts--up the ramp towards the door, like he absolutely owns the place and it’s the biggest contrast imaginable from the shy way he all but limped up the stairs to his and Chan’s apartment just three months ago.

Changbin throws his head down before he’s noticed, hurriedly packing his stuff up as Jisung passes by. There’s a little knot in his chest made of conflicting threads--one that’s sad he never got to help the boy and the other that’s just happy he’s okay.

He scurries after him, seeing him walking down the hallway and he actually jogs, something he only does in dire situations, to catch up. 

“Um, Jisung?” he says, sounding more confused than he’d like to when he makes it to Jisung’s back.

The boy turns around, eyes wide, and yeah, Changbin would recognize those eyes anywhere.

Wide eyes. Dark brown, so dark they’re almost black, eyes. Eyes anyone could easily love as if it were as natural as breathing. Deep, unrelenting eyes. Ones you can’t help but _want_ to get lost in even if, like the barrel of a gun, they only lead to demise.

Changbin looks down, suddenly shy. He feels heat crawling up his neck and, well, that’s a new development. “Um, I don’t know if you remember me, but-”

“ _Dude_ , holy _shit_ it’s you, hi!” Jisung practically yells, and throws himself onto Changbin in a bone-crushing hug. It knocks the wind out of him, but he still manages to get his arms around him in time to not seem entirely awkward. “I was just about to go visit _Gone Days_ to find you and Chan! I _seriously_ fucking owe you guys--I didn’t even realize you go here!”

If this is how Jisung is, truly, Changbin’s scared for his sanity. He’s like a second Felix, but with cussing, and that’s a volatile and dangerous thing. 

The whiplash feels a little nice, though. Especially where Jisung’s words go straight to his heart, knowing he thought about them enough to come back and say hi.

“Um, well, I was just heading back-” Changbin stutters, subtly wriggling out of the death grip before he actually suffocates. People walking by shoot them curious stares, and Changbin’s cheeks are ablaze when he realizes that he was just given affection in public. From someone he barely knows. “Wanna come with? Chan’s been wondering about you too-”

“Yeah, of course!” Jisung says excitedly. His smile changes a little, though, with a slight, goofy quirk to his brow that shouldn’t be as attractive as it is. But the blood in Changbin’s veins feels like it flows a little bit faster, going straight to the tips of his ears and his fingers. “Wait, you guys have been thinking about me?”

“Uh, yeah?” Changbin plays it off as normal. Because it should be normal. Even though, reality is that he’s screaming at himself internally for being an absolute idiot, outing himself and his thoughts carelessly. “You just kind-of disappeared. And you really didn’t look too good. We were worried.”

Jisung’s eyes go glossy, for a moment, but he blinks it away with a blinding smile. God, it makes Changbin’s heart clench up awkwardly.

“Ah, shit, don’t make me cry, dude,” Jisung laughs, rubbing his eyes with his palms for a moment. He grabs Changbin’s wrist and starts dragging him through the hallway. “Come on, I want to see Chan too and I need a chai latte _really_ badly.”

The bus ride back uptown quiets Jisung down, significantly. 

His demeanour plummets from the same height it sky-rocketed too--going from talking about why he and Changbin are both at that specific university to silently gesturing to the ‘group session’ feature on Spotify with a pleading look in his eye. 

And Changbin graciously accepts both sides of him like they’re Christmas gifts. In the span of an hour, he learns both that Jisung is a Professional Music major and that he even tried to minor in Fashion, with vivid description of the genres he specializes in, to actually hearing his style.

_“Seriously, I know it’s not for everyone, but I think you’ll like it,” Jisung had insisted._

_“And how can you be so sure?” It isn’t like Changbin to be teasing with anyone that isn’t Chan, sometimes Jeongin, but the smirk grows and the words flow like it’s natural. Like he’s comfortable._

_Jisung gets it, of course he does, and giggles. Despite being the one wearing all black, his cuteness far exceeds any pastel pink sweater Changbin could try. “Because you’re cool, and cool people usually like Periphery.”_

Something Changbin learned, then, is that someone like Jisung has the power to speak whatever they want into existence.

The guitars are heavy and wild, the bass turned up to eleven and the drums working in unidentifiable patterns. At least, to Changbin. He gets to watch as Jisung subtly follows it all with his fingers, one punctuating the drumline and the other switching between the bass and guitar. It’s terribly endearing.

Normally, Changbin would stare out the window and ignore the space around him on these bus rides. But trying to look away from Jisung is like trying to pull apart magnets with superglue between them.

The golden hour sun makes his skin look warm and soft enough to touch, with sparkling irises and a mirror-like smile that could blind him if he stared too long. A tiny bead of sweat draws Changbin’s eyes to his neck, and he acknowledges, momentarily, that he might be a little enamored with this strange, dual-toned person called Jisung.

_Changbin looks at the band’s about-them section furrowing his brows. “I didn’t take you for a metalhead, to be honest.”_

_“Well, then what did you take me for, hm?” Jisung lilts. He leans a little too close to Changbin for what’s reasonable between strangers. The fact that Changbin keeps having to remind himself that, that they’re strangers, is concerning enough. “I’m curious.”_

_Though, he doesn’t make an effort to get away from the soft heat that comes off of Jisung’s hoodie. “I don’t know… You look like you’re into contemporary R &B or something softer.” _

_“Well, I absolutely vibe to Kehlani, if that counts?” he asks, shrugging. “And Hayley Kiyoko, but she’s pop--but like, same vibes, you know? So you’re not entirely wrong.”_

_Changbin just shakes his head, looking at him with comically exaggerated pity. Like a doctor breaking bad news to a patient. “If you only like one artist in a genre, I don’t think that counts as liking a genre.”_

_And when Jisung sighs, he turns the tables, somehow looking like Changbin’s the more pitiable one. “Ah, nevermind then, you’re completely wrong. I’m so sorry.”_

And that’s okay. That’s fine by him, because it would honestly be a crime to see something so bubbly, so bright and beautiful, and not be utterly infatuated from the get-go. It takes an immense amount of willpower for Changbin to not whip out his sketchbook and name a page _‘Han Jisung’_. 

He would fill the middle with the boy in bliss--headphones turned up, world turned down. And then more, as much as he could fit on the page. Playing guitar, dropping change to pay for the bus, studying, sipping coffee, playfully running down the sidewalk, and curled up in heavy, fuzzy clothes. 

Changbin, the ever-greedy artist in need of constant muses, wants to leave impressions of graphite all over the chapter of his life in which Jisung appears. Because who knows if he’s a mere side character meant to push the plot forward where it stagnates, or a new addition to the main cast.

If it’s the latter, well, Changbin would be the last to complain.

_“Wait, so you’re in literature and art?” Jisung blinks, like it’s the most incredible thing he’s ever heard in his life. “That’s so cool.”_

_It’s only natural for Changbin to feel a little bashful. It isn’t exactly a daily occurrence, having someone_ not _scoff at his programs. “How is that cool?”_

_“Well, I thought you’d be like, a boring business major or something,” Jisung says after a pause, with an accentuated eye roll. “And I was really nervous because fuck that shit, you know?”_

_He smirks, watching the confusion grow on Jisung’s face when he does. “So, you think Chan is boring?”_

_“He’s a business major?!” The confusion blossoms into panic, both hilarious and genuine, and Changbin stifles a laugh. “Oh no. Now I need to rethink my entire undergraduate program horoscope chart-”_

_“Your what-”_

_“But don’t worry! I don’t think Chan is boring,” Jisung rambles, hands up in defense._

_And before Changbin can respond, he smiles. The sweetest smile in the world, and yet it still doesn’t prepare Changbin for the amount of wholesomeness in his next line when he turns the page._

_“You guys were too nice to me and your apartment is way too cool to be boring. And he makes good tea. So yeah, not boring.”_

The climax of the song they’re listening to hits as they go over a speed bump. Jisung’s eyes widen at the sudden jerk, before he looks at Changbin and giggles quietly. Stuttering is an understatement for the thing his heart does in response.

He checks his phone, and the title is apparently _‘Sentient Glow’_.

And right now, that seems about right for the view he’s been given.

  
  


Of course Chan is happy to see Jisung again. It’s a no-brainer on that one.

But, to say Changbin is a little bit sad when Jisung gives Chan the same, bone-crushing hug, and all the same enthusiasm that he’d given Changbin? Well, the pang in his chest was a little more than unexpected, but he’ll take it in stride. Swallow it down, pretend like it isn’t a big deal. It isn’t a big deal, so why should he even have to pretend? It’s… weird.

He can admit to himself a million times over that he thinks Jisung is a beautiful person internally, and that it reflects greatly through his appearance. Who would deny that? It’s just not like him to feel sad about the attention of a stranger being diverted away from him. If it were Felix ignoring him, the seizing of his blood flow would make sense, because it’s _Felix_. 

His little sunshine, his happy pill. Not someone he’d known for less than a collective twenty-four hours, not someone he’s only seen twice. 

If Changbin was a wise man, and not just an idiot kid in adult disguise, he’d have seen his feelings coming. 

He survives the misplaced envy, though, until Chan’s passing them two warm drinks and going back to making sure Yeji isn’t breaking the espresso machine like she manages to do every month.

And then, there were two. 

The only other customers staying in to eat and drink are at the bar area--an old couple commenting on the jazz and bossa nova that plays through the shop’s playlist and laughing with Sumin. By the window, Changbin and Jisung might as well be in a private bubble.

“Do you mind if I sketch you?”

“Hm?” The younger of the two looks up from his latte, lips puckered around the edge of the mug and hands bundled up into paws. “Yeah, sure.”

It’s concerning how much Changbin feels like he’s getting a fix when he turns to a clean page. ‘Han Jisung’ fits wonderfully in the top left hand corner, and in the bottom right, Changbin starts to draw exactly what he sees.

Though not as thin as he was in December, Jisung’s frame is small and he fits well into the velvety mauve armchair. He left his sneakers on the floor, tucking his feet up onto the edge, covered by black socks with little bananas embroidered on them, at least mid-calf height judging by how they disappear beneath his rolled and cuffed jeans. His arms stay tucked behind his knees, both hands tentatively wrapped around his drink.

Every time Changbin looks up, the word “endearing” echoes through his head.

Cute. Soft. Endearing. Adorable. Small.

“I’m sorry I left without saying anything.”

The words are quiet, so quiet Changbin almost doesn’t hear them over the sound of his pencil scratching, but he does.

“I just,” Jisung breathes in the steam of his latte, and breathes out shakily, “my friend--his name’s Hyunjin--he said my ex showed up to his place. So he called the cops and then this whole, big fucking mess started happening where he told them _everything_ , so I went over and we went to the police station together. And I _repeated_ everything, and next thing you know there’s a whole-ass criminal investigation going on-”

He stops drawing when he hears a crack in Jisung’s voice. 

All of a sudden, the boy from December is back again. Tiny and curled up on himself, with watery eyes and clenched fingers. If there wasn’t distance to cross first, Changbin would tuck him under his arm like he did on the floor of the office on the other side of the shop.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he says softly. “You’re not obligated to tell me anything.”

“It feels good to tell someone other than my only two friends and my therapist." Jisung chokes out a laugh and slowly sips his drink. His hands are trembling. “Besides, you might have actually saved my life that night. He’d been stalking me for a while--and he _should_ have plead guilty because the police found so much evidence when they got a warrant on his phone and laptop.”

The memory of Jisung’s thin wrists and pale skin seems to come out of nowhere, but in Changbin’s head, it’s because of the weird shift in Jisung’s eyes when he says his ex was stalking him. Not fear, not sadness, something foreign and barely noticeable.

Over a decade of friendship with Chan and customer service have made Changbin an expert on eyes, though. They’re his best artwork. With the right materials, he can get the intricacies of angry eyes compared to disappointed ones down to the shift of light in the irises and the way the pupils are dilated.

He doesn’t attempt to make any conclusions, but he recalls when he and Chan agreed that they thought something bigger was going on than what Jisung was willing to share.

And if he’s still not willing to share, well, who is Changbin to pry?

“But he still pleaded innocent?” is what he settles on saying.

“Yeah, and he yelled at my lawyer in front of the judge.” Jisung wipes his eyes and rolls them at the memory, and the way he jumps between emotions so seamlessly is oddly inspiring. At least, to Changbin, when he thinks about the colours he could paint Jisung in. “So he’s gone for a long ass time, thank fuck.”

“And, are you okay?” he asks, absentmindedly shading in steam with barely a glance, knowing it naturally from how many coffee sketches he’s done.

“Well, not really,” Jisung chuckles. Just when it seems like he’s going to tear up again, his eyes light up with a wide smile and bubbly words. “But I started going to therapy so I’m getting there! _And_ I feel a lot better knowing he can’t even look me up on the Internet. Oh, _and_ I get to go back to school next semester, but you knew that already. _Oh_ , oh, _and_ I have a new apartment for safety reasons and it’s actually super nice compared to the dingy shithole I lived in, plus it’s a three-bed so I got Hyunjin and our other friend Minho to live with us too.”

Changbin grins at the excitement. He could listen to Jisung talk about all the good things in his life for hours. “So you basically went from rock-bottom to the top of the mountain.”

“Yeah, exactly!” Jisung’s feet do what can only be described as hyperactive pitter-pattering. He’s lucky he’s drank over half of his chai latte because, otherwise it would be spilt all over him by now. “By the way, is it cool if I bring them here? My friends, I mean. This is a really cute place but also, they want to meet you and Chan.”

“Wait, why us?”

“Again, you probably might have saved my life, dude. They’re all like: _‘they have saved your life, we are eternally grateful!’_ and also Hyunjin is on a constant hunt for the best americano in the city, so he needs to come here at some point anyway. It all works out!”

“Shouldn’t _you_ be the eternally grateful one?”

“All three of us are,” Jisung clarifies, chugging the last of his drink and setting it down on the coffee table with a proclamation of a sigh. “So is it chill if I bring them here?”

It’s not chill, Changbin thinks, because of Chan’s habit of adopting people and the fact that anyone who is best friends with Jisung is likely just as chaotic. That kind of loudness in the shop--well, Sumin would like it. The girls would too. And Chan-

Well, it might not be chill, but things don’t need to be chill to be good. Chaos is welcome in these walls.

“Maybe not tomorrow night,” Changbin says. “But after tomorrow, yeah. Bring them in whenever you want. We’re closed on Sundays, though.”

If he was inspired by Jisung's eyes, he just learned that his smile is equally as brilliant of a muse. He tucks that thought away for later. Much, much later.

  
  
  


That night, when Changbin finishes his essay draft, he finds himself with his sketchbook again. 

The lamplight is dim, even right over his shoulder, and the raindrops on the window are muffled the way the world is when you first slide on your headphones. An unmistakable type of peace.

He goes back to his sketch of Jisung, raw and unfiltered, and refines it into thin grains of sugar. Darkening his hair except for where there are single strands of sour umber reflecting in the light. Filling in the background with the triangle pattern on the cover art he saw earlier, when Jisung was sharing his music. 

It’s likely incorrect--he can’t remember the album or the band name to look it up--but it ends up looking cool. In his opinion, at least. 

He thickens Jisung’s eyelashes like they’re wet with tears, and scuffs up his knuckles. Makes him into something that’s reminiscent of their first meeting, but not quite. Somewhere in the middle of then-and-now, and maybe a little more in-line with how jittery and quick to fall he is.

Very few people are fascinating to interpret like this. 

Changbin would count most of his friends among the ranks, but he could cut a few out if he took on a more objective approach to the term. It might come down to just Jeongin and Felix, but he’s sure that now Jisung is going to fall into the same category.

The shifts in his mood, his unabashedness, his instability and yet constant movement despite the lack of balance. _Fascinating_ , that’s the only word. Even in drawing, Changbin is enraptured--he looks so much more alive in his smudged graphite than any person reasonably is. So much so that if Changbin closes his book, he’s worried he’ll wake up to find petals sprouting from the pages.

He’s a field of rapeseed and lavender, half-trampled and half-blooming. 

Changbin asks himself, idly, if it would be selfish to try and pick some of those flowers.

**_//_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is where i remind you to listen to 'catch fire' by periphery because... you just should.
> 
> but more importantly i hope you liked this and if you did just leave kudos and a comment if you feel generous!! either way, even if you don't, i'm glad you read all of... that. hehe


	2. heavy eyes, but a tongue won't stutter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wasn't going to post but... stray kids mama performance. i didn't get to proofread this but idc i need to TALK
> 
> i NEED to say how much of a power move it is that they performed victory song. with that ICONIC warrior concept, at an award show that snubbed them of any nominations. instead of performing any of their hits this year, that would've gotten MNET more views. and of all songs, the one called "victory song".
> 
> also hyunjin looks like alucard from castlevania, revolver ocelot from mgs3, and v from dmc5 all had a baby. and it's a very sexy baby. reminding me why he's my damn bias. oh and i screamed to my friend last night about how i want them to perform with knives again, and i received SWORDS and SPEARS. so much more than i was fucking prepared for.
> 
> anyways, here's binsung lmao

**_//_ **

**_It sure is something when we all catch fire_ ** **_  
_** **_Bodies burning like the sunrise_ **

  
  


There’s a photograph of everyone hanging above one of the tables pressed against a wall.

Some days are more vivid than others in Changbin’s memory, and one of them is the Sunday that Sumin took the entire staff to the beach. All eleven of them lined up along the coast, with Yeji’s tripod sunken into the sand to resist the wind, and a clicker in her hand. Their clothes were trying to escape them, and the waves hit the backs of their legs. And the mother-son duo liked the photo enough to display it in their precious shop.

They have a polaroid board tucked behind a glass case, too. Full of selfies and candids that are signed with the name and date of whoever’s in the tiny frame. Changbin’s favourite is probably the one of Chan and Seungmin holding two golden retriever puppies that a customer had been carrying in her purse from the shelter. They had to scrub their hands a million times after, but it was worth it for the smiles that got caught on camera.

Honestly, it’s a bit annoying when customers comment on it, but there’s something nice about having a reminder that they’re people before baristas on display. Ryujin insists that she doesn’t get yelled at as much as she used to work at the Starbucks two blocks over. 

Despite the display, it took Changbin an embarrassingly long time to figure out why the name _Gone Days_ always fit so well.

What’s also quite embarrassing is Jisung’s friends. 

_“Oh my God, we need to have something like this in our apartment,” Hyunjin gapes at each shot, hands pressed against the glass protector like a child at a zoo. When he swivels to look at Minho, his hair damn-near bounces. “Why the hell haven’t we done this yet?”_

_Minho claps him on the back of the head, and Hyunjin whines even though there was barely any force behind it. “You tell me, you’re the one with the camera, idiot.”_

Imagine two clowns, trying to fix their own honking, polka-dotted car, speaking only in pitched screams and pantomime.

They’re not hard to differentiate, appearances as far apart as day and night. But for Changbin’s sanity and slow learning pace, there’s Friendly Pretty Boy, and Weird Pretty Boy. 

The former is as nice as his face is, introducing himself warmly as Hyunjin, _“-jin as in genius.”_ His hair is fluffy and black, toying a fine line of styles that Changbin can only sum up as an emo mullet. It suits him in a way that a hairstyle with that designation shouldn’t. But his face is thin and every feature is proportioned to an anime character design, so it works. 

But the latter… well, he’s questionable. He’s all smirks and winks that edge between genuinely uncomfortable and unironically comical. And when Changbin asked his name, because he forgot, the response was: _“Whatever you want to call me, babyboy.”_

Jisung insists his name is Minho, but Changbin thinks only the second half is true.

He’s cat-like with an undeniable cuteness that’s offset by the chaos he radiates and the cocky stature he bodes. Maple syrup coloured hair and french-toast eyes, topped off with skin the colour of sugar when it first starts to caramelize. He’s all sugar and salt lumped together and it’s hard to know how to approach him. But he looks at Jisung like he’s the most precious thing in the world while telling him off all the same, so it’s difficult to make a negative judgement so soon. 

_“Oh my God, these mugs are_ so _freaking cute,” Hyunjin practically squeals, voice shrill enough to make ears bleed, and yet somehow Changbin doesn’t really mind. He notices Ryujin wince, tucked away in the corner, and laughs as she sneaks into the back storage area to escape. Hyunjin certainly doesn’t notice, whipping his head around to look at Changbin. “Are these for sale?”_

_“Yeah, they are-”_

_“And he painted them,” Chan chimes in. He’s unfazed when Changbin sends him a glare, only smiling happily when both of the new faces chatter in excitement. Even when he mouths the words ‘I hate you’, the response is a playful wink. “Pretty much every photo in here was taken by Yeji or painted by Changbin, and he makes all of our original mugs and sets.”_

_“Really?”_

_“That’s_ so _cool!”_

_Changbin decides he likes it when Minho’s attitude cracks._

_“Can we buy this tea set?” he asks, pointing at a set Changbin decorated in various cat breeds. His smile almost reaches his ears, face practically split in half. “It would match my ornamental feline figurine collection. And my cat butt fridge magnets.”_

_“Our fur babies will love it!” Hyunjin adds, gasping dramatically and covering his mouth with his hand, in the pretentious way rich people in dramas do._

_“Uh,” Changbin’s cheeks heat up, and he’s suddenly struck with the feeling of unfamiliar eyes on him. “Of course you can buy it-”_

_“Minho, Hyunjin,” Jisung cuts in, and Changbin almost forgot he was there. Odd, how he seemed so loud and chaotic, only to be the mellow one. “Tell Chan about the time Soongie fucked up that giant spider.”_

_Spurred by the mention of his cat, Minho’s eyes shine, and both him and Hyunjin turn to Chan to retell the tale._

_When Changbin looks to his side, Jisung is smiling softly at him. And now he has yet another observation about this stranger--that he’s more observant than he seems._

Changbin could say more about them, watching them bicker as they inspect every corner of the shop, thankfully free of all customers.

But… to see he’s a little bit in-deep with Jisung is an understatement.

He had expected buffoonery from his friends, but he had also expected him to take part in all of it. Granted, he does exclaim every fifth sentence and bound around like a happy little kangaroo, but compared to their antics, he’s calmer than before.

Calm in the way Seungmin is when he’s judging the other four of them in public, only to do the wildest things when they’re all alone. Calm like the water until you turn away, and a wave soars from your feet to your neck when you’re distracted. Calm like a bath is after the loud rushing of water through the tap suddenly cuts off, and you sink in and let your skin flush red under the scalding surface.

If he didn’t have any sense of self control, Changbin would ask Jisung to come to the beach with him, to sketch him by the water he’s so reminiscent of.

But, this is his third day knowing him.

“Hey, you okay?” he asks suddenly, chin propping itself up on Changbin’s shoulder.

He can feel the weight of the boy’s chest against his back, not fully pressing in but _there_ all the same. There’s no way he could imagine having enough confidence to get so close to someone he barely knows--to the point where Changbin can feel Jisung’s breath grazing over his jugular. It makes him shudder, but it seems to go unnoticed.

“Yeah,” Changbin says with too much air, and he feels himself blush. His eyes trail on the other three, talking and laughing like they’ve known each other for years. “Just, new people. I’m not really good with that concept. Well, not like this.”

“Wanna sit with me?” 

Before he has a chance to answer, Jisung is already pulling away, taking a literal and figurative weight off of Changbin’s shoulders, and skipping over to the bar seating. It’s not the furthest away from the others, but far enough that the speakers over top of them will drown out the conversation.

Ryujin, having come back out at some point due to the inevitability of customers, smiles at them. Of course, Jisung wouldn’t know it, but there’s an eyebrow wiggle and a wink waiting in that kind of smile. It only serves to make the blush spread down to Changbin’s shoulders, not that anyone can see.

Jisung hops onto the stool like a child, while he prefers to slide in with what Felix once called: _“major alpha vibes”_ , whatever that means. Seungmin tried to explain that it’s a dumb way of saying “swagger”, but Jeongin and Felix spent ten minutes grilling him on why swagger, alpha vibes, and big dick energy are all very different, and Changbin had tuned it all out.

“Can you make a chai latte and a mocha?” he asks, slipping on his baby voice halfway. An absolutely disgusting habit. The kind that definitely started out ironically, until it became ingrained. “And you know where my bag is so can you also pay with my credit card?”

“Oh, it’s okay,” Jisung cuts in, smiling at her in a way that puts Changbin’s attempt at cuteness to shame. Being naturally that cute… yeah, nothing will ever stand up to it. “I’ll-”

“ _Seriously_ , dude, just take it for free, you think Sumin is going to complain?”

She has a fair point, one that makes Jisung looks between them before he settles down with a shrug, and Changbin just reasons that he’ll punch it in later.

“Can we make it to go?” Jisung asks idly. He toys with the strings of his hoodie, one of the plastic tips compressed under the pressure of his teeth. “I think I need air.”

They’re a contrasting pair--Changbin in his pastel pink crewneck and Jisung swallowed by a black hole and a band logo. They’ll look weird, but who is he to deny someone _air_? “Yeah, sure, you good?

He, in his constant need to have his hands making _something_ , pulls out his miniature sketchpad he likes to have tucked away in his pants. The younger watches, attentively and quietly, as he reaches over to grab one of their marking pencils to draw with.

It comes as naturally as chewing fingernails and gnawing on the flesh of his inner cheek. Little ball, little oval, tiny snake, two triangles, and four more itty-bitty non-descript shapes that sort-of look like a fifth grader’s failed calligraphy. A bit of shading here, a bit there, add two eyes, and a mouth that hangs down from a tiny nose.

An instant kitten.

Changbin signs the bottom out of habit before he carefully tears the paper off the seam. After a moment of thought, he writes: _‘This is you’_ across the top of the page.

And, well, Jisung has the face of the cat that got the cream when Changbin slides the paper over.

“Hope that makes you feel a little better,” he offers, and the younger giggles. _Giggles_.

No amount of bossa nova and crooning melodies could ever compare. Funny, how someone with a voice so light listens to music so heavy.

“It really does, thank you,” he says whilst neatly folding the page with perfectly perpendicular creases. It gets tucked away into his back pocket, where it will wear down and become an overvisited memory.

Changbin clears his throat, before they fall into a horrible silence. “So, is something bothering you?”

“Oh, yeah no, I’m good, just wanna get away from those fuckers for a while,” Jisung laughs, looking over at his friends with affection in his pretty eyes. They’re still laughing with Chan and--wait, when did Jeongin get here? “They haven’t left me alone in months, and I love them but yikes, you know?” 

“Yeah, I feel that.”

“But you’re buff as all _fuck_ so they can’t complain about me not being safe!”

Changbin hasn’t even taken a sip of his drink, and yet somehow, he manages to nearly do a spit take as Jisung’s saying profuse thanks and compliments to Ryujin. Their drinks sit in his hands, snug in a tray.

“Alright, let’s go--I wanna sit by that fountain in the park behind here.”

  
  


In his quest to create an encyclopedic picture book about Jisung, Changbin learns as much as he can and documents it all in eraser streaks and blots of papercut blood. 

And surprisingly, Jisung gives so much of himself away to this little project without even knowing, trusting and willing for reasons that can’t be understood. Because in Changbin’s walk of life, the kind of people that he thinks would barge into coffee shops to run from stalker exes and stay the night at stranger’s homes just to be a ghost come morning… Those people all have trust issues.

But Jisung glides across the cracked sidewalks on a skateboard like he’s wind and gravity only serves to keep him in the atmosphere, but not the ground. Wind and water, shifting and flowing by their own rules. 

There’s no flinches when he tows the line of the curb, or when children just barely escape crashing into him. His chai doesn’t spill a drop even as he twists and turns in graceful motions with his other arm extended out, calling: _“Hey! Look!”_

As if Changbin hasn’t been staring this whole time.

His fingers twitch for something greater than a sketchbook--he needs a canvas.

He needs a canvas and pastels and twenty-seven reference photos so he can give life to his new theory that Jisung is an angel who’s simply victim to human cruelty he doesn’t understand. That’s the only explanation for how he can soar through the cigarette and industrial smog. How he’s friends with Dumb and Dumber and just watches over them like a sort of guardian.

Something not quite different from fear boils inside him when he realizes that Chan is stuck with them… and _Jeongin_ at the same time. He’ll have to pray for him, if there’s time.

Eventually, they come to a stop at the public park not too far from the café. It’s one of those parks that cater less to children, more to everyone above the age of eighteen. It resembles the central area of his campus, the trees aren’t nearly as strategically cut down and there are far more benches, cradling elderly couples that feed pigeons.

Memorial Park--recognizable by the monument for fallen soldiers and as a prime picnicking location for non-students. And the fountain by the monument has definitely found its way into many polaroids and sketches.

True to his word, Jisung’s wheels take him to the fountain. The ancient stone bricks almost match his outfit in deep gray tones, and there he goes, being swallowed up again. Every bit of him except those bullet-wound eyes and semi-automatic smile. _Click. Bang._ Changbin lost the quick draw.

He never stood a chance anyhow.

“Did you bring your sketchbook?” Jisung points towards the white satchel bag strapped across Changbin’s torso as he catches up. He nods, and Jisung lies down across the rim of the fountain, even though it causes the water spray to leave small spots on his face occasionally. “If you want to draw me, you can.”

“Isn’t it cocky to assume someone wants to draw you?” Despite his words, Changbin takes Jisung’s discarded skateboard and uses it as a place to sit, not even two metres away but enough where his eye level shows him the grandeur of the fountain and the leisurely look on Jisung’s face.

The younger shrugs and poses, likely not as subtly as intended. His arm and leg facing outward hangs off the edge, his other hand just over his heart, and his other leg bent with his foot planted. He’s clearly modelled before, or he just takes really good Instagram photos. You never know nowadays. “Maybe, but I figured that’s what the plan was when you brought the bag with you.”

“Fair enough.”

And the pencil starts scratching again.

The sun feels nice, and everything holds onto the scent of morning dew like a lifelong. And for mid-afternoon on a Tuesday, there’s little to no presence of obnoxious children. 

The inspiration plants at Changbin’s feet and the stem slithers upward, breaking and dividing and curling around his body. Just until it sneaks through his ears, and blooms in his mind.

Ideas of spring are like an aura surrounding Jisung, unseen by all but the one person here to turn him into art. Baby pinks and fuschia, minty greens and the fresh blue sky, tiny droplets of water all around. Pastels or watercolor? The choice will be hard.

He’s earthly, too, Changbin decides. Full of the unexpected, housing more life than what anyone could rightfully predict or ever conceptualize. There’s calm and calamity, the stability of having a ground to walk on and sudden eruptions of emotion that likely aren’t so sudden with a little bit of analysis. 

What a person.

What a _fucking_ person.

Jisung’s tongue pokes out, licking his lips. Dewy. “Can we talk while you draw?” he asks.

“Yeah, of course. This isn’t like you’re a noble getting your portrait done, or something.”

“Ouch,” he hisses, clutching his sweatshirt slightly. “That’s one way to knock me down a few pegs.”

Changbin lets himself laugh, like, really laugh, out in the open and it feels nicer than expected. “Someone’s gotta do it.”

There’s a pause, a comfortable one, where Changbin gets the general outline. It’s on its own page, the large scale of the fountain needing the full landscape ratio to get it right. He’ll add to the study page some other time. For now, this is transfer-to-canvas worthy.

 _Scritch scratch_. He includes the trees and makes a note at the top that says ‘cherry blossoms’, because he has an idea and he’ll run with it as far as he can. The fountain gets harsher lines where it’s stone compared to dripping water, and where Jisung’s body goes there’s a halo of gray eraser marks to make it distinguishable enough.

Because he’s decided, already, that this is going on a canvas later, and god forbid he can’t distinguish his sketch lines apart and ruins yet another attempt at making something worth signing.

Changbin gets in the zone, but it’s instantly broken by Jisung with a few words. “Do you always draw strangers like this?”

Not that he minds--he’ll just fire back, still focused on how much his ankles are exposed by the cuffed jeans and how much fabric is bunched around his waist. “Do you always let strangers draw you like this?”

His answer is a death glare that has his lips pursed to restrain a grin. “Answer the question.”

“No, but you’re a friend now, not a stranger.” Is all he can say, because he wants it to be the truth. Might as well attempt to speak it into existence, in the calmest method he knows how. “Besides, you’re interesting. I think I want to get you skateboarding, too, as practice for dynamic movement. You’re a good subject.”

Jisung snorts, turning his head to look, and Changbin takes the opportunity to draw his face at the angle. “Why is that the weirdest but nicest compliment I’ve ever received?”

“It’s one thing to be called pretty and another to be called nice to draw, I guess,” he says. That word slips out with a mind of its own, no way to halt its course. But if there’s one thing Changbin feels okay in lacking right now, it’s shame. His sudden onset obsession is clear as day, anyways.

Still, it doesn’t remedy his blush in the slightest when he’s called out.

 _Click. Bang._ He never stood a chance.

“Is that you saying you think I’m pretty?” The words are sly and even at this distance, there’s a predatory feline look in the younger’s eyes, hyper-focused on the blush on Changbin’s cheeks. But the cold air nips them and his face is flush, too.

He’s quick to fire his own shot, anyhow, even with one wounded shoulder. “Well, you called me buff as all hell.”

It’s impressive, how the younger will recoil from force and have it dissipate immediately as he keeps the momentum blasting. “That’s different. So, you think I’m pretty?”

From the outside, it’s not a game, it’s just a conversation. But enough watching, enough learning, lets him weigh the tension. Both their shoulders are locked, breath waiting on the next comeback, anticipating the words and formulating words to snap as quickly as possibly.

Flirting, from the perspective of a person who’s not a natural at it. It’s reassuring to know that it’s not just Changbin that’s out of his element.

While he calculates, he raises his head. Looks Jisung in the eyes--the void--and the confidence he tends to feign hits them both like a freight train.

“Yeah?” He cocks his head to the side, and smirks. “Is that shocking to you?”

_Click. Bang._ Jisung never stood a chance.

The result is stuttering, and a flush that deepens all at once. Not from the cold.

“Hm? I mean, Hyunjin and Minho are leagues prettier than me,” the younger sputters, another giggle making a jailbreak between his teeth. “Even if I _am_ pretty--which I am, I’m _very_ handsome--they’re objectively better. Everyone always goes for them, not me...”

And as always, the switch is flipped. A few words, the cocky attitude is back. 

God, has flirting always been this fun? Is this the feeling of power that Felix and Jeongin talk about while Seungmin calls them fuckboys? Because damn, Changbin might get used to this.

“Good thing art isn’t really about being objective, then.” He’s never heard his voice sound so… so _velvety_. 

He forces it down, worried about how carried away he feels he’s getting, and takes things far away from flirting in one risky swing. 

“All my friends are really nice looking, but I like drawing them because of their personalities,” he rambles, watching as the thick air falls apart between them. “And trying to capture them in pencil. I like that.”

The swing hits, the guns are knocked out of their hands. It’s a tie.

“So you’re trying to capture my personality?” Jisung asks. The teasing lilt is still there, but without the phantom pressure that felt oddly close to bodies pressed together. “But you barely know me.”

“I know you’re chaotic.” Changbin says. “And you’re really observant, and caring. You like anime and chai lattes. You listen to metal and professional music is your major. You flip between smiling and crying like it’s nothing and I think that duality really shows in your eyes. In general your _eyes_ are just… super interesting.”

“You’re not drawing my eyes at all now, though.” Jisung mumbles and looks away. His hand comes up to press against his mouth. Changbin wonders if his heart is pounding, too. “I’m posing.”

“I need to work up to the eyes,” he explains like it’s common knowledge. “Get to know you a little better and learn them a bit more, and… yeah. Then I can draw them.”

Suddenly, the younger’s gaze is back on him again, and a way-too-eager smile follows along. “Is that your way of saying there’ll be more of these art dates?”

“I guess,” Changbin sighs. But he smiles back to say _‘yes’_. “If you’re down.”

“I’m very down. Because what you just said made me realize that all I know about you is that you’re buff, you live in a coffee shop, and you like art and reading.” Jisung laughs and covers his eyes, which is likely the greatest sin ever committed by any human, if it were up to Changbin’s opinion. “I need more chances to get to know you, too.”

For the first time since they started talking, Changbin’s pencil stops

“And you want to know more about me?”

“Absolutely.”

High. High like Sumin made his mocha with extra espresso and cocoa syrup. High like when he drinks mimosas with Chan at midnight and they drunkenly make-out. High like when someone says: _“your art is really nice!”_

But also, high like nothing he’s felt before. 

Well, that’s a lie, but…

“Uh, well, I also like anime,” he offers. The pencil moves again, making delicate strokes of eyelashes and eyebrow hairs. “I like chill music. I _really_ like chocolate, anything chocolate flavour. Um… everyone that works at the shop is basically my family, we’re all really close, and Chan’s my best friend. And… I don’t know what else to say.”

“That’s fine, that’s enough for me to get a start.” When Changbin thought, the other day, that Jisung’s smile was a fantastic muse, he might have underestimated the charm that one, slightly crooked tooth could have on him. “You also don’t like being the focus of conversations, I noticed.”

“Yeah, I noticed that you noticed.” It’s true. He did, pocketing it away like a secret. “Thank you for that, actually. Your friends are really… intense even though we just met.”

“That’s Hyunjin and Minho for you,” the younger man says with a new look on his face. 

Fondness. Changbin wonders what the other colour in this duochrome will become under the light. 

“Sorry if Minho made you uncomfortable, by the way. He takes some getting used to and doesn’t really care about chilling out for others.”

“It’s fine, I was weirded out but he looks at you and Hyunjin more… normally?” The words start to come out wrong, so he buries his face in his work, doesn’t bother looking up. He doesn’t need to, the details are ingrained and only need to be retraced. “So I figured he’s not bad, just weird.”

“I’m noticing that you pay a lot of attention to eyes,” Jisung hums, curiously. A child screams from somewhere in the distance, and they both chuckle. “Is there a reason for that, or something?”

“Um, I just do. I got really good at reading Chan growing up, and now it’s just something I do with everyone.” 

It takes every bit of willpower to not elaborate on growing up. The vulnerability must have rubbed off on him, and now he’s uncomfortable in a way only rambling has any chance of helping.

No one’s at fault, but Changbin feels slimy in the worst way. Burst the bubble, clip the thick layer of dead skin away, and get used to the sting of peroxide. Bandage the blisters, and move on. It’s so simple.

“You know the whole ‘eyes are the window to the soul’, thing?” He deflects easily, laying the polysporin on thick. “I don’t really believe that but I do think it’s a lot easier to communicate when you can understand their feelings. And since body language and ticks can be different for everyone, the most universal thing is eyes. I guess.”

“I’ve also noticed you sound smart in the most nonchalant way when you talk,” Jisung sighs, and it hits that he’s vying for attention.

“Thanks.” Changbin risks looking up again, and surely enough, the younger is pouting. The eye contact makes it go away, though. “That’s the weirdest-nicest compliment I’ve ever gotten.”

_Click. Bang._ Somewhere, when Changbin wasn’t looking, Jisung stumbled towards his gun again. With one shot left, he aims.

_“Are you okay with me noticing more?”_

_“Yeah.”_ Changbin nearly gasps at the tone. _“That would be chill.”_

As his body starts to burn, his blush so hot it sears him from the inside and brands him with _‘SMITTEN’_ against his will, he sees the duality of Jisung’s fondness. 

There’s a fire in those dark, abyssal eyes.

The conclusion is slowly drawn that spring is the cruelest of the seasons.

Something about the undulating sun faking promises of warmth and comfort while the world stays trapped in frost. Maybe it’s better in other parts of the world, maybe the warmth isn’t a lie.

But the night sky doesn’t even try to lie. Changbin is left hung out to dry in rain so cold it leaves red, drying dots on the skin of his hands. He tends to them, using gentle soap and hand cream after trying to reheat under the showerhead. This time, the rain is anything but cold.

His reflection is a blotch of red ink, even with the fan on, even when he tries to wipe the condensation away with his hand.

So he brushes his teeth, shaves using his muscle memory, clips his nails slowly to pass the seconds by a little bit faster. In that sad, monotonous style. The caffeine crash, the depression after the high.

Yeah, the depression after the high.

Chan is still downstairs, packing up the shop with someone. It’s Tuesday. So probably Seungmin. Repeating the things he knows subconsciously, bringing them to his front and center thoughts, just to pass the seconds by a little bit faster.

Is this the depression after the high? The buzz felt like it would last forever.

Changbin’s life is monotony. Write an essay. Draw a picture. Make coffee. Read books. Fulfill basic needs. Talk to friends. All the easy stuff he has memorized, with variations depending on the month to accommodate the special occasions and the intricacies woven into the universe’s fabric for each season.

Of all of them, spring is the cruelest.

New beginnings. New life. Bright colours and change. Budding romances and everything starts to look pretty again. But that’s false, because the world tucks itself into a freshly washed, soft white blanket and falls asleep. 

Spring is when the world wakes up, sweaty and gross. Summer and the abrasive heat it brings is ironically the inevitable workday, boiling everyone alive under the scrutiny of society’s magnifying glass. Autumn is gentle, though, the evening in which you go home and relax with a hearty meal and a calming drink.

At least, in summer, you’re too focused on not burning out to hate yourself as much. But spring allows, even encourages, full-throttle self-loathing. Especially as everyone you see is something put together, ready to get-set-go, and you’re still a groggy, filthy mess with eye crust and bad breath.

Fuck spring. Or, fuck what spring is under all it’s propaganda and illusions.

The condensation rains onto the countertop, and the reflection Changbin sees is a slightly less blurry blotch of red ink. Less blurry, more details. More ugly details. 

Underneath the pastels he wears to trick himself into seeing the same illusory springtime everyone else does, when he stops lying to himself, this is all there is.

He can hear Chan open the front door. Hears him kick his shoes off. Hears him walk down the hallway.

_“Almost done? I smell like carribbean coffee.”_

_“Yeah, just gotta get dressed. Hold on.”_

Changbin switches his towel out for flannel pants and a black tank top, and stares at his reflection one last time before he lets Chan into what is now more of a sauna than a bathroom.

Spring is cruel, but so is the abyss he sees every time he focuses on Jisung’s eyes. Whatever he wants to do with that thought, he’ll figure it out in the morning. With the sunrise, when he remembers to take vitamins and finds things to like in the mirror.

  
  


**_//_ **

**_Alive, we breathe_ ** **_  
_** **_When everything is as it seems_ ** **_  
_** **_But is there something much more?_ **

  
  


Every encounter with Jisung is a pleasant little memory that Changbin files away for safekeeping. Aisle sixteen, in the wholesome section, filed as _T400_ , bottom right-hand side--yes, just under the heartbreak section--and it’s the bright red binder.

You can find only a few things in there so far, but the catalogue is slowly expanding.

Like with how, it turns out, Jisung wears contacts--and this is discovered when he unexpectedly finds him tucked away in the corner of the university library. He’s the new oak along the rows of old, carved mahogany, the mint among the pine, and some other comparison that Changbin has likely read somewhere in the wing for recreational reading. 

Oh, and he’s the rare four-leafed clover. Because it takes some serious luck to find him in a room bigger than both the coffee shop and Changbin’s apartment combined, a couple of times over…

As much as Changbin really does love this place, it’s impossible to find people here at random. It’s a labyrinth of hardcovers and filing folders, the shelves ornate and built like skyscrapers in the shape of a maze. And yet, by chance, Jisung is in the exact corner he’d planned to make his study session’s home.

The bean bag that houses him has absorbed him like quicksand. At first, Changbin only even knows it’s Jisung because he recognizes the sleek, top-end headphones.

The position he’s in simultaneously looks comfortable and absolutely horrible, with his feet held up by what must be puppet strings and his laptop digging into his thighs.

Of course, Changbin adds it as the second addition to the _‘Han Jisung’_ page. He shades in blushing cheeks and draws the glasses lop-sided, lips in a cute pout with brows furrowed from concentration. It extends off the first sketch, blooming out the side as the triangle pattern morphs into a pile of books. 

Two little Jisungs in their comfortable habitats, honorary astronauts loitering in the endless space of his own starry eyes.

Yeah, it’s creepy to just draw him like this, something akin to middle-school girl voyeurism. But Changbin doesn’t think Jisung will care too much. And he’s only hiding behind a bookshelf to save himself the embarrassment. Really.

His introduction is plopping himself down in front of the younger boy, holding up the drawing in front of his face like a mask. He hears Jisung squirm in shock, mumbling a _“holy fucking shit”_ and gasping. His laptop slides and as his shifts around, the bean bag swallows him up even more and makes the most hilarious shuffling noise.

“Jesus fucking Christ, _Changbin_ ,” Jisung hisses between his teeth. When he lowers his sketchbook from his face, it looks like Jisung just had a terrifying paranormal experience. Based on the shock across his paled face, and the headphones completely titled off his ears. “This is a _library_ , what if I screamed? Are you insane?”

“Then come to the art hall with me,” he whispers, smiling. “Or outside, it’s nice out. We can work together.”

“Ugh, fine.” Jisung rolls his eyes but closes his laptop and lets his headphones hang around his neck, pressed into his sweatshirt. Does he ever wear anything but sweatshirts? “Only because you’re cute.”

Changbin doesn’t need the sun to shine, with how bright he smiles.

  
  


Pastel and charcoal. Types of colour, types of art tools. Crossing Jisung’s path in the cruel springtime left the perfect narrative for this chapter in Changbin’s life. The artist and the musician. So in love with their work, and yet the sketchpad and the laptop stay tucked away in their bags as they walk past the art hall. And through the entirety of the campus field, until they’re winding down the road past the gates.

_“You don’t have any more classes today?”_

_“Nope!”_

_“Sick, me neither! Lets go hang out somewhere else.”_

You don’t create art if you haven’t mastered the techniques of procrastination, after all. It starts with calling it “hunting for inspiration”, or “cleansing the mind”. Then, you just completely ignore the fact that you have a deadline for your watercolor assignment because you’re distracted by someone who’s two steps and a stumble away from being successful on alternative-TikTok.

And Changbin’s glad he’s not, because if Jisung wore eyeliner and more than one or two chains at a time, he’d combust. So he’s perfectly fine with the constant baggy clothes and worn out combat boots. For the sake of maintaining his own soft image and cute tendencies, because only God knows what he’d do if tight leather pants got involved.

He loves watching the way Jisung looks so comfortable, anyhow. It makes him approachable, the fact that he’s not adorned in anything fancy. Liking someone is easier when you’re not intimidated by them, who would have thought?

It makes it easier to _admit_ you like them, too.

“Do you want to try riding my skateboard?”

They find themselves on the boulevard--a long street full of colourful shops that leads into downtown not too far off from campus. And on any given Wednesday at, what, one in the afternoon? It isn’t too bustling. They can stand side-by-side down the center without getting lost in a crowd.

But they’ve stopped now, with an ice cream shop on one side and a shoe store on the other, with Jisung holding out his plain black skateboard as if it’s so easy to just _take it_. When Changbin’s only ever ridden a bike, and even then he’s terribly uncoordinated.

“Uh,” Changbin blinks, looking around to see if anyone’s noticed them, instinctively. “What if I break my face?”

“I’ll hold onto you the whole time,” Jisung says cheerfully. Who needs hypnotists when that smile lowers all his mental defenses? “Promise.”

Changbin notices he doesn’t really get a say when Jisung plants the board at his feet and grabs his wrists, pulling him to step onto it. It shakes under his feet, but he’s too distracted to notice. Not when Jisung’s hand goes straight to holding his waist. 

It’s to keep him balanced, he knows, but it disturbs the flock of gulls in his gut and sends them flying and cawing everywhere.

“I really don’t think this is a good idea,” is what he manages to choke out, eyes glued to his feet.

“If you want to get off, you can,” Jisung says, moving his hands again, but this time, his fingers are wrapping around Changbin’s own. It makes time screech to a halt, and his mind nearly goes blank. “But I promise, I won’t let go of your hands, okay? You look too cute for me to let anything bad happen to you.”

“That’s your second time calling me cute today,” Changbin points out, ripping his own gaze away from his trembling feet. “And you had the audacity to call me out for thinking you’re cute.”

Jisung starts to walk, then, and Changbin yelps as he’s forced to move with him. He goes slow, thankfully, but the feeling of moving without being the one to move himself is jarring. Especially standing up. Especially when it all depends on his balance. 

The only thing keeping him straight-standing is the tingling shooting up his spine from _holding hands with Jisung_.

“Only because I have nothing to be ashamed of, thinking you’re cute.” The younger boy cuts off his thoughts like they’re nothing, providing the perfect distraction. “But thinking _I’m_ cute, on the other hand? Very problematic.”

When Changbin snorts, it surprises both of them that he doesn’t fall off. “Problematic how?”

Jisung looks down towards their feet, noting the placement of Changbin’s and the fact that there hasn’t been an accident yet. “Wow, you’re really a natural at this, huh?”

When Changbin coughs on purpose, levelling him with a glare, he smiles sheepishly.

“And, well, you’ve met my friends,” he laughs, squeezing his fingers just ever-so-slightly and oh God, the tingles are back. “Doesn’t matter how handsome I am. When you put me next to them, I drop to like, a negative five. God-tier looks, both of them. Therefore, it is entirely problematic that you think I’m the cute one.”

“I’m pretty sure that attractiveness doesn’t operate on a bell curve.” Changbin inhales sharply as Jisung takes the risk of guiding him to sway. He skates along in thin little _‘S’_ shapes, a bit faster than before, and it _does_ seem to come to him naturally. But that might just be credited to Jisung, not him. “And, this is also the second time you’ve brought up not being as handsome as your friends.”

“Because I’m not.” Jisung states it like a fact, like he doesn’t have to think twice about it. “And I don’t have anything over them, like big muscles or anything, so it’s no contest.”

“You’re right, beauty _isn’t_ a contest.” Somehow, the fact that he’s on a skateboard gets completely forgotten, defenestrated, and he’s lost in lecture mode again. “There’s no reason to look at society like a judge’s panel and let them dictate the one true beauty standard that doesn’t exist or make sense.” 

“Sometimes I forget that you’re a lit major because you’re always drawing,” Jisung deflects. “But then you open your mouth and it all makes sense.”

Changbin, though, isn’t distracted or dissuaded, and he’s holding so much eye contact he notices Jisung’s throat bobbing when he swallows. “Like, I know I’m technically not as conventionally attractive as Chan”

  
  


“-Or any of my friends, honestly. But ‘conventionally’ attractive doesn’t make any sense. The extensive scientific data that exists shows that the only real objective beauty is a degree of facial symmetry, and so few people have that completely. So the ‘conventional’ shit I compare myself to is mostly eurocentric bullshit. And, well, of course I’m not going to fit that.”

Jisung shrugs and pulls away from their impromptu staring contest, looking ahead to make sure they won’t crash. 

They’re still holding hands. And there’s no sign of either of them letting go.

“I wouldn’t say Minho and Hyunjin are eurocentric-looking…”

“On that note, there’s also the absolute clusterfuck that is Asian beauty standards,” Changbin continues, unbothered. “And I don’t really fit those either. But I remind myself, hey, people check me out in public. People flirt with me. People call me handsome, and that’s not just my friends. So I walk away from the mirror and don’t go back until I remind myself that it’s okay that I don’t fit any standards.”

“...Do you ever just want to makeout with someone because you think they’re really smart?” Jisung blurts. Their pause shatters like cheap glass, and Changbin plants one foot on the ground to stop them in their tracks. The blush that crawls up Jisung’s neck, to his face and his ears, is fast and potent. “I mean, there’s a few _more_ reasons I want to makeout with you, but _oh baby_ , when you talk like _that_ ? You make a woman go _mad_.”

“I mean, no I haven’t,” Changbin smirks. Jisung’s dark eyes are unhinged, blinking in every direction. 

They’re still holding hands. 

“-But I have wanted to makeout with _someone_ to shut them up, because they ruined a moment with a Shakira quote.”

He can see it, in his abyssal eyes. The words repeating themselves. Processing.

Until his eyes sparkle white, and the stillness shatters.

Blurry, is the way it all feels when Jisung pulls on his hands and pulls him to the sidewalk. Towards a vintage thrift store, or something--right now it all melts together into just walls and windows. 

All in the background--the foreground of this image is in an all-black outfit that, right now, looks like a psychedelic splatter of unfiltered colour. Everything else is half-erased graphite.

The skateboard ends up beside their feet, making itself the third wheel. Jisung spins the two of them around, and Changbin wonders how skateboarding and shopping and holding hands to this whiplash. 

“But all this _attraction_ ,” Jisung whispers, “the _tension_ .” He backs Changbin into the wall, hand next to his head with a surge of confidence powerful enough to light a department store. Since when did he look so tall? “Don’t you see, baby? This is _perfection_.”

“I like you better as a metalhead,” Changbin deadpans. Tries to, at least, but it comes out squeaky. The stupidity of it all makes him want to laugh, but he can’t. Not when he’s being pressed like this.

He hasn’t lost yet, though, thanks to Jisung’s single brain cell abandoning him.

“I just like _you_ ,” the younger boy says cockily. His eyes keep shifting to Changbin’s lips impatiently, though, and the tables slowly turn. “I really, _really_ like you.”

“No, really?” Changbin’s the one smirking now, voice dripping with sarcasm and that velvet tone he heard in himself the other day. He’s not taken aback by it this time, though. “I would have never have guessed.”

“Okay, but, seriously,” Jisung whines, impatience wearing out on him as their faces get closer and closer. But he never goes in for the kill. “Just fucking _kiss_ me, bro. Because I want to kiss you so _goddamn_ bad but I’m not going to if you don’t want it because you’re so _fucking_ adorable and I-”

Even if Changbin could stop his wide and amused smile, he wouldn’t. “Well, I don’t want it if you’re going to call me bro.”

Jisung whines again, and there it is. That sense of power. Maybe this is what those _‘major alpha vibes’_ that Felix says he has are supposed to feel like. But Jisung’s breath takes him away from that random thought. “Then kiss me, _dude_.”

“That’s not really any different,” he tuts.

“Oh my _God_ , you _asshole_ ,” Jisung’s other hand leaves his pocket and shoots straight for Changbin’s shoulder, “just _fucking kiss me_ -”

And when he asks like that, Changbin gives in. He doesn’t know why or how he resisted in the first place.

Jisung’s lips are like his eyes, running so deep Changbin’s surrounded by darkness. He’s not pressed against a brick thrift store wall, not anymore. He’s drowning in black sweatshirts and chai lattes. Teetering the line of soft and intense, with stopped hearts and held breathes, no movement but closing the spaces of air between them. 

All the words rush to him--the abyss, the void, drowning, cute, soft, endearing, adorable, small-

Warmth slides its way in there, too.

Changbin’s kissed strangers before. In bars, at whatever party Chan managed to drag him to, and no one kisses like Jisung does. He strikes into heat like a match against the side of its box, the younger boy’s lips rough and chapped with the faintest hint of blood where the skin dips in from where he must have been chewing. And if Changbin had to choose between this and comfortable chapstick-clad kisses, he’d choose this.

Jisung kisses with a silent plea not too different from the one Changbin felt the day they met. The nervousness, the shyness--quiet anxiety that tastes like smoke and roaring flames on the roof of his mouth. A kind of heat that isn’t just lust, but is the steam rolling off of coffee and toasted cinnamon. 

It’s difficult to not savour it. To lose his breath over it. Blankets and fireplaces and steamy showers, the controlled heat and the comfort of winter he loves, all in a kiss.

And he never even knew this kind of feeling existed outside of romance novels. 

Changbin doesn’t even realize his hands are on Jisung’s waist until he accidentally squeezes, and the younger boy whines. When they pull apart, they’re panting like dogs, and Jisung’s eyes are vantablack. 

It would be demonic, if it were anyone else. Changbin thinks it’s peculiar how comforting his darkness is, and he wants to map it all out. Find where all the stars are, explore all the galaxies, and sew the black holes up.

To take them to a place where nothing exists except them, the void, and smoke and ash. 

_“You have no idea,”_ Jisung exhales, _“how_ safe _you make me feel. It’s almost scary.”_

There’s no time to ponder the words, or the sadness in his eyes as he says them, when he kisses Changbin again. And in the darkness, Changbin sees the flickering of a thousand embers.  
  


“Before I lose my mind,” Jisung whispers, “is this what I think it is?”

They stumbled their way with kisses and clingy arms through the stores the boulevard offered them, until they returned to campus to collapse on a bed of grass and shopping bags holding new clothes. Changbin doesn’t know where Jisung works, but his credit card can take a beating without the younger boy whining about it or hesitating.

He likes where they are, likes the sun beating down on his face with Jisung laying on his arm, curled slightly into his side and playing with a loose thread on his sweater. The air smells like flowers and the clouds are at their most fluffy, trying to rival the state of their hearts.

“Depends on what you think this is,” Changbin says. “And what you want it to be.”

“It’s scary how safe you make me feel,” Jisung echoes from earlier, when they kissed for the second time. “And I want you. I like you a lot. I just don’t know if I can have you and keep lying to you at the same time.”

Changbin blinks, and rolls onto his side to look at Jisung. But his dark eyes stay glued to the grass. “I don’t know what you mean by lying to me,” he says softly. “But I want you to. And you don’t have to tell me the truth yet, if you don’t want to. Unless it’s something that relates directly to me, or could cause problems, you can take all the time you want with it.”

“I’m a mess,” is the only comment Jisung has to offer, coupled with a laugh and his watering eyes. Not that Changbin minds. “It’s not that I don’t think I can lie, really. I know I can, technically, but I don’t know if I could, like, be comfortable? So I can’t? Fuck, that doesn’t make sense-”

“-It does. Trust me, I get it.” Changbin shushes him and risks running the back of his hand across Jisung’s hair. When he doesn’t see any retaliation, he threads his fingers through it, scratching lightly at his scalp. “When I was a kid and I met Chan, I kept a lot from him. And I hated it.”

There’s a pause--a long and tired one, that drags its feet through the mud. Changbin can’t really gauge where Jisung’s head is at, other than contemplation. He knows what it’s like for his thoughts to run on a looping track, slamming each step into the empty track while the stadium lights are blaring and the rain is torrential. 

But the slow, swampy walks, where each step is sucked into the nasty ground and the slimy texture pervades every nerve ending? He’s only observed this in Chan, and it’s something his best friend has never quite liked talking about.

“Can I tell you anything?” Jisung asks. It’s quiet, barely above the sound of his breathing, but Changbin snags it like a fly in his web. “And you won’t be mad that I lied?”

Changbin knows the answer, but for the sake of being earnest, he runs through everything he knows about Jisung. And out of everything, he can’t think of one thing that would have been an irredeemable lie, so he nods. “Of course you can.”

“That night,” Jisung bites his lip and lets out a heavy breath, “my ex and I--I _just_ broke up with him. We weren’t separated for a year, he never let me leave him… He hurt me a lot, I couldn’t even go to school last semester, because of him... And he tried to hurt Hyunjin, that night--when I crashed at your place? I thought he was going to kill me, or my friends, honestly, I was so fucking _scared_ …”

He and Chan knew it, didn’t they?

It was so obvious there was something more. The paleness, the way his skin clung to bone like a desperate embrace-- _obvious_. They didn’t dare speculate anything, because who were they to make assumptions?

But hearing this, Changbin isn’t surprised. Just angry, and yearning. A volcano erupts inside him, somewhere, and burns away everything in his mind that isn’t pure, unfiltered attention devoted to the person laying next to him. The person trusting him. 

And how badly he wants to kiss away the pain in the pattern of his three triangular freckles. From the depths of his eyes to the surface of his mouth, and strip it all away to reveal a renewed person, ripe for happiness and health.

“It’s okay that you lied about that,” he murmurs. He resists the urge to scoot closer, to risk crossing boundaries. He wants to hold Jisung proper again, but lets his patience flex and hold stiff. “We were strangers. No shame in keeping things private at all.”

“And like, I know I can trust you. You and Chan were so _nice_ to me even when you didn’t know me.” Jisung, as if reading his mind, moves closer and tucks himself away under his firm bicep. His breath is hot against Changbin’s chest. “You held me when I cried and I--even though you _didn’t know me_ . And I feel so _safe_ with you it’s scary because I thought that, like, I’d never be able to trust anyone but Minho and Hyunjin,”

“I thought I’d be broken and paranoid or something,” he continues, and in addition to sunlight, Changbin feels tears on the skin of his neck.“But here I am, trusting people like it’s nothing and smiling all the time and stuff. Yeah, it’s not _all_ good but it’s better than I thought it would be and I don’t know how to handle that. I prepared myself mentally for all the walls I expected to build, but now you’re right in front of me and I’m looking around like oh shit, I didn’t build the damn walls.”

His mouth pours out sweet nothings as he gives in, pulling Jisung closer. He runs his hands all across his back and through his hair, wondering to himself how his quiet sniffles sound so harmonious with the birds and students in the distance laughing.

The cruelty of spring affects more than just him, it seems. Promises of new beginnings, new relationships, new moments--it all comes with ripping your heart out and getting rid of who you were to accommodate the changes to come. It’s uncomfortable. Undeniably.

And Changbin knows, so he helps Jisung shed the dead skin as best he can, and lets his new scales glide around his limbs.

“I genuinely don’t know how you can sound so poetic and so dumb at the same time,” he says to break the tension. It works, and Jisung’s last sniffle is cut short by a baby-like giggle. “It’s cute, though. But, in all seriousness, are you okay with me being here? Right in front of you?”

“Maybe?” the younger boy offers. His breaths are purposeful and steady in an attempt to remain composed, and Changbin is _so_ proud. “I think I am.”

“And you know, if you change your mind and you’re not okay with it, there’s nothing wrong with that.” He pulls back, even as he’s protested by a whine, to look into those dark eyes again. They’re wet with tears, and he smiles reassuringly. “It’s never too late to set boundaries, and if you need me to step back a bit, I will.”

“If you really mean that,” Jisung exhales, “I doubt I’ll have to ask. You’re so nice to me.”

The whiplash of Jisung’s hopping between cute and sad, sad and cute, strikes him again. Hits him like a thick baseball bat whirling a heavy sphere towards his face, and it happens to look eerily similar to irises for whom he’s running out of synonyms to the words dark and black to describe.

He’ll never get tired of it, though, even if his head repeats the same adjectives to him like a song that won’t get out of his head.

He’s a little amused, as he watches Jisung’s eyes dart between his own, and his lips. So he plants a tiny kiss on his nose, bursting from the inside at the tiny squeak Jisung makes. “You keep saying that like it’s a weird thing.”

“Because it is,” Jisung giggles again, this time pressing his own kiss to Changbin’s _lips_. Like it’s casual already. “Who the fuck hugs a crying stranger?”

“Um, me?” Changbin finds himself to be the breathless one now. That’s okay, he steels on. “I’d’ve probably kissed you too, if you asked. You’re kind-of beautiful, y’know.”

And Jisung, in all his glory, sputters and _gurgles_ . “Oh shut the _fuck_ up, you mother _fucker_ -”

_“-Make me.”_

The sputtering becomes whining as he kisses Changbin within an inch of his life, and crying becomes laughter as grass stains and dew rub off on them. So that later, when they complain about their laundry and the stubborn green tint refusing to fade, it will be their reminder that this was real, and spring is as kind as it is cruel.

  
  


Is it as kind as it is cruel? 

When Changbin’s blood rushes south, his mind replaying the memory of Jisung pinning him into the grass for a kiss and laying heavy on his ribs, is that cruelty or kindness? What about when the younger boy sat on his lap, tongue poking out as he put dandelions in his hair? Changbin can’t remember if they looked like a halo or a hellish crown.

Spring is the time of new beginnings. No one ever specifies if they’re meant to be good or bad, though. And Changbin has a borderline historical track record of new beginnings, looking akin to an era of war and plague and famine.

When the world grants him Jisung, is it truly in kindness? Or is it a fake-out, and before summer hits, the world will take Jisung right back and leave Changbin’s happy memories covered in deep stains more stubborn than wet grass on white pants. 

It would corrupt his summer, and ironically the warmest months are on the thinnest ice with his patience. Undoubtedly it would crack, and leave Changbin perpetually drowning for half years at a time.

Maybe it isn’t fair to put that much weight on Jisung. No, it definitely isn’t. Changbin can’t help it, though, not when his late nights are spent browsing the old vinyls in his head, moving the needle to the heaviest melancholies and letting it scratch away at the old, leathery scabs.

> _Babyboy ♥ [1:29 AM]_
> 
> _hope ur having sweet dreams, hehe_
> 
> _meet me in front of the library after your first class tomorrow, okie?_

Changbin sends back a black and purple heart, content to communicate without words whenever feasible. He sinks just a micrometer deeper into his bedsheets, listening to Chan’s low hip-hop music play from the kitchen as his best friend cooks what smells like pancakes.

Sometimes, he really wishes he was Chan. Someone who lets moments of weakness stay their duration, but not a second longer. Someone capable of moving on. Someone capable of just admitting when there’s a problem, and also doing something about it that isn’t just sleeping or wallowing. 

Those people are rare, but having one of them constantly within view makes Changbin exponentially more jealous.

> _Babyboy ♥ [1:31 AM]_
> 
> _btw i found ur insta_
> 
> _i bet ur sleepy tho so i’ll wait to gush about how cute ur selfies are_
> 
> _nightie night baby, uwuwuwuwuwu ♥♥♥♥_

Changbin sends a cute little ‘goodnight’ text back, not as cute as Jisung’s but effective enough for him. His phone lays abandoned on the edge of his bed after that, and he buries himself in blankets and numb thoughts.

He considers dragging himself out to talk to Chan, but he can’t. He considers texting Chan to come sit with him for a bit, but turning his phone back on and typing out the text is equally as rotten work. Depressingly enough, telepathy doesn’t exist yet.

So, like many other nights, it’s up to chance if Chan idly decides to do one of his check-ins. That’s okay. He tells himself he’ll see Jisung in the afternoon, and Felix works the closing shift with him. It will be okay. He’ll defrost, and the numbness will dissolve. 

Funny, how when people talk about seasonal depression, they mean winter and the lack of vitamin D. Changbin would agree that his sadness is longer than just a season, but he would also agree it’s funny that he gets seasonal depression when the sun comes back. Like his mental health, if it were its own person, would be a grumpy and antisocial vampire who enjoys only one activity, and that activity is building snowmen.

If it were up to that person, Changbin would spend the rest of the spring indoors and leave Jisung’s messages on read to not tempt fate’s inevitable prank on him. 

But he’ll trust, reluctantly, that spring is being truly kind to him. For once.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALSO I NEED TO MENTION HOW IN CHAN'S VLIVE, HE SAID THEIR PERFORMANCE WAS "a message" AND THEN PROCEEDED TO PLAY JISUNG'S DISS TRACK. also chan in the performance, the growls?! the SCREAMS?! fuck my LIFE UP, DUDE
> 
> (also comment/leave kudos please okay i gtg to the clinic now byebye)


	3. this heart's still fluttering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally back! the writer's block kinda hit so this isn't the greatest. you can blame finals for that
> 
> but i was still creating content during my block! i have a youtube channel!  
> i made edits of stray kids music videos/skz-players to some of my favourite rock and metal songs, including the song this fic is based on. here's the link: [catch fire x b me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4YUW_6js1o&ab_channel=caffeineforum)
> 
> the first two edits on the channel are bad as fuck but... i really like my levanter edit a lot... and my hyunjin one so please check them out! it's my christmas present to you :))
> 
> anyways, here's the chapter!!

**_//_ **

**_Underneath the sheets, beneath the skin_ ** **_  
_ ** **_There's a beauty waiting to be adored_ **

  
  


Jisung is a muse and a lover fit for an artist more abstract than Changbin.

When exams pass in a violent blur, they wipe away the fog on the windows and take summer in for all its heat. Wildfires and thunderstorms, humidity not unlike the breath that leaves Jisung’s mouth when he lets Changbin pull purple and red paint from his capillaries to the canvas of his neck. 

He likes his Mucha, and his renaissance bodies, but just for Jisung he makes pictures of the wild and untamed. 

There’s so much he learns from Jisung, like how tongues can be paintbrushes and no fine dust is better pigment than the hues of flesh and blood, love and lust. Charcoal smudges look nice with long scratches down his back and watercolor is inferior to the streaks of salt and eyeliner that Changbin loves to wrench out of the younger boy on any day he dresses up a little.

Even if the boxers and knee-high socks stay on, there’s so much space to make art.

Temporary art, though.

It’s all temporary. The marks fade, the scratches heal, and makeup and pigment wash away. Not that Changbin would like for it all to be permanent, but he doesn’t like how it reminds him of how fleeting the most beautiful things in life are.

And how beautiful Jisung is to him. Cracked but alive, a flower struggling to bloom each morning. He skateboards, his favourite album is called _The Congregation_ , he only owns black and white clothing, he likes iced peach tea, he’s so loud when he’s with the people he’s comfortable around but needs to recharge every night like an overworked Tesla. 

But Changbin wonders if he’s ever really there, or if everything he sees of Jisung is through a projector on a white screen. Flickering, weak images of something that _used to be_ , and when it all ends Changbin will leave the theatre and slink back home on a dark bus ride, never to watch the movie again.

Or maybe he’s the one phasing out. He’s not too sure.

“Baby…?” Jisung whispers from the counter. The only light in the kitchen turned on is the one overtop the stove, and the colour it shines is the prettiest yellow. Dim, but even at a distance it reveals the motley of marks that were pulled onto his neck, some deep bruises and others a hefty blush.

Changbin keeps his eyes away, though, making sure he doesn’t burn the two-a.m sandwiches he’s toasting in a frying pan. The sizzling butter feels louder than it actually is. Still, he hears Jisung, and hums a non-committal _‘yes?’_.

When Jisung doesn’t say anything more, he carefully moves the sandwiches to a plate and clicks the stove off, before turning and raising a brow.

The younger boy just fiddles with his sweater sleeves and stares at the cold tile floor, nibbling on his lip. “Are you mad that I don’t, y’know… put out? Like, in _that_ way?”

It’s a reminder, with crude blush-inducing words, that Jisung’s clothes are the shades of the charred mess left of Changbin’s mind when they stumble into bed with the door locked. Jisung is, at every instant, both a flickering candle in sweet-smelling wax, and a fireball that chokes Changbin’s lungs up with smoke and its acrid scent. 

Eager and unsure, adorable and so fucking sexy that all attempts to wax-poetic about him go out the window instead of Changbin’s lips. He wants to say the most floral and sugary things, but all that seems to come out is _“god, you’re so fucking hot.”_

For all Jisung rambles, he’s enthusiastic with the older boy’s cock in his mouth. He sucks and grinds and grips like it’s second nature to him, and falls apart so beautifully when Changbin rides him all the way to the moon and back.

This sudden insecurity is out of left-field, he thinks, when he looks back on the times they’ve, objectively, fucked.

_“Look, before we do anything…”_

_Jisung holds Changbin off of him, but it’s unnecessary, because he’s not going to move until he gets the greenlight. Just normal road etiquette._

_“I… I prefer being on the receiving end of… um…” He chews his bottom lip, whining softly when Changbin coaxes out of the clutches of his teeth. “You know, like, dicking down? I like being dicked down.”_

_“Fair enough,” Changbin chuckles, and takes notice of how Jisung doesn’t smile fully with him. “There’s a ‘but’ coming, though. What’s up?”_

_Don’t make assumptions, Changbin’s mind says. Assumptions cause expectations and paranoia. Be patient._

_And patient he is, watching each individual movement of Jisung’s chest with every breath. Every twitch of face muscles. He’s nervous--Changbin has fully committed to one of his tells; he looks down and bites the right side of his cheek, and doesn’t blink so much._

_“This is going to sound so dumb,” he laughs to himself._

_“No, it’s not going to be dumb,” Changbin reprimands him, massaging the spot of his cheek where he sees the teeth clenching down. “Whatever makes you comfortable and happy, babyboy. None of it’s dumb.”_

_“Don’t get me wrong, I trust you and I want you,” he says like he’s comforting Changbin, and it hurts a little to hear. “But I’m not ready for it, yet? I want it to be, like, really soft and special and meaningful because I’m a stupid sappy idiot-”_

_“Sappy? Yes. Stupid? Idiot? Absolutely not.” Changbin moves Jisung’s hands away and leans down, fingers only half-assedly pining his wrists to the sheets as he kisses him softly. “You don’t need any reason, okay? You don’t want to bottom yet. That’s that. I can bottom for the time being, if you want, or we can eliminate dicking down altogether, for however long you want. I’m good for anything so it’s up to you.”_

_Jisung only pulls him closer, hugging him tight and working his lips over his neck, nibbling and suckling absentmindedly while they rock back and forth. “What did I do to deserve you?”_

_“You buy me coffee, you taught me how to skateboard, you stay up with me when I can’t sleep, you make great dumplings…”_

_Changbin tightens his grip on Jisung’s wrists and latches onto the very base of his neck. He wrenches a high-pitched moan out of the younger boy as soon as he starts his painting, biting down roughly the way he knows he likes. It makes Jisung squirm and grind their hips together, already needy and impatient._

_“...You let me sketch you, you get along with all my friends, you’re a ball of sunshine, and you’re so cute when you sing your favourite songs. That’s what.”_

_“Changbin, I-”_

_“Tell me what you want, baby.”_

  
  


Changbin blinks once, blinks twice, blinks a third time. Back to the present, even though he never really left. 

“Why the _hell_ would I be mad about that?”

“I just-- _I don’t know_ , sometimes I worry I don’t give you enough?” Jisung mumbles. He curls in on himself when Changbin gets close enough, but still reluctantly wraps his legs around the older’s waist. Hands on cheeks, hands on shoulders. “It’s not that I don’t want to. I really do, I just want it to be, like, _special_.”

“I know, _babyboy_.” He kisses Jisung as quietly as the night. Hyunjin and Minho sleeping away, none the wiser. “We’ve talked about this, you don’t need to worry.”

“You’re so nice to me.” The words are familiarly heartbreaking, so Changbin mends the scars with kisses peppered all over the younger boy’s face, until he’s giggling away the unshed tears.

He’s taken notice, too, of how often Jisung says that. Each time sounds like he’s realizing it all over again, like he can’t believe it. And as much as Changbin wants to press into it, ask why he always says it-- _tell him to stop saying it_ \--he lets Jisung have the moment. Lets Jisung get emotional over it. 

This is all still so new. A singular season to their names, the puppy love phase still in full effect. Neither of them know each other inside out, and there’s no years worth of friendship to rely on like there was in the brief relationship he had with Felix. 

Changbin’s always been good at holding himself back, thankfully. Everything he ever gets, he waits so long for. It doesn’t matter if Jisung is right in front of him, ready and happy with him. There’s too much risk of losing everything if he moves too fast that he’s always reminding himself it’s the tortoise that won the race. Be wise, be patient.

Not that it’s too difficult. He’d wait an eternity if he had to.

“And you’re so sweet to me,” he murmurs against those chewed, swollen lips. “I could never ask anything more of you.”

“Is this a bad time to tell you that I think I might love you?” Jisung pushes him back gently by the shoulders, searching his eyes in the dim light. His voice shakes, but he smiles with slight confidence. “Like, a fuck ton? I love you a _fuck-ton_.”

You could take a sledgehammer, you could take a thousand bricks, or you could hurl a ridiculous amount of knives right into his chest.

None of it, absolutely none of it, could hit Changbin harder than the word _‘love’_.

The way it makes his throat close up, his heart pound, and his ears ring. The way it kills him by corroding him from the inside-out until all his flesh and blood and bone is _gone_. 

How can a word mean nothing and everything to someone at the same time? 

_Love, or the beast that looks like it._ The lyrics he embeds in every playlist, the constant melody in his subconscious, the one that surges forward right now to tell him to take a thousand steps back. Even though he knows he loves Jisung, he _knew_ Jisung loves him, and yet the confession was something he never wanted. In the span of five seconds, he manages to replay the song a million times over.

It’s terrifying him. The kitchen is suddenly his childhood bedroom before he spent every damn night with Chan, and the walls are thin, but he’s thinner. They’re weak, but he’s weaker. They’re slow closing in on him, but he’s slower.

But Jisung doesn’t deserve to deal with his bullshit.

Changbin caresses both sides of Jisung’s head and pulls him right back, trailing their lips over each other like birds flying side by side. He masks his tears as joyful ones and wills them away like he’s a romcom protagonist in the heat of the expected confession. Swallows down the fear, and gives the stage to the words he was, still is, so fucking scared to say.

“No, because I love you a _motherfucking shit-ton_.”

“You _bastard_ ,” Jisung laughs. He grips Changbin’s biceps with ungodly force and smashes their lips together, holding him there, keeping him still as he brands him with his soul. And when they pull away, his eyes are wide-blown and demonic. “You have _no_ idea how my insides feel from you saying that.”

“But I can imagine,” Changbin says teasingly. “Because I’m pretty sure mine are doing the same.”

A damn lie. A half-lie, actually. He can’t imagine that Jisung’s joy and his own fear are quite so different in the way it makes every organ malfunction and makes their insular lobes take center-stage in their consciousness. But there’s pleasurable pain and not-so-pleasurable pain. The exciting kind pinned up against the kind that makes someone want to scream and throw themselves in front of a bus to make it stop.

Lucky for Changbin, Jisung’s too enamored with the moment to notice the difference in the way their hearts and lungs are struggling to keep up.

“I mean it.” There are so few things that sound better than Jisung’s breathy, desperate voice after a heavy kiss, and his ears savour each note like molecules of wine. Even though there’s the looming threat of all the stupid shit he might do if he gets too drunk, and wakes up remembering none of it. “I love you, Binnie”

“And I love _you_ , babyboy. So much.”

  
  
  


Unluckily for Changbin, he can’t contain himself quite that well with Chan. 

It would be useless to try to, and when he gets back to their apartment, he just lets himself collapse into tears in his best friend’s bed.

And Chan, the too-good-for-this-world man he is, goes right into their methodical routine. The breathing instructions, the cuddling, the comfort snacks they keep in the door of the fridge just for this. _Take the damn vitamins, drink the damn water, breath the damn air_.

“Jisung told me he loves me,” he croaks, when he can. “I told him I love him too.”

And Chan, the too-good-for-this-world friend he is, understands without any further explanation.

  
  


Changbin can stare at walls for hours. And his best friend can leave him there, piled up in blankets, and let him take his time coming out of post-panic haziness. 

Slowly, a collection of things builds up around Chan’s bed. An empty glass that held water, white chocolate and Welch’s fruit snack wrappers, and a few pencils with Changbin’s sketchpad. Pad, not book, because the ways Changbin expresses sadness through art and words needs to be separate from his beloved book. 

He hears Chan on the phone, once or twice, and all Changbin catches is something about Seungmin picking up tonight’s close for him. _“He knows how to do it because he watches me any time he gets… Who cares? We don’t exactly have designated roles aside from us two… Okay, thanks, bye- Wait, what you said earlier, that’s still cool? Perfect. I’ll talk to him. Love you too, mum, bye-bye.”_

Changbin doesn’t care enough to make sense or listen too intently. All it does is spur him to sketch the curves of Seungmin’s round facial features at the mention of his name. To think of all the ways intelligent, ambitious, self-assured Seungmin is so much better than he is, like _all_ of his friends are.

His life is so _comfortable_. He worked so hard, got so much help from everyone around him, and yet here he is. In a cluttered room that isn’t his, trying to keep calm with a pencil and playing games in his head like finding every red object he can see, or counting how many total faces watch Chan sleep from his boy-band posters every night.

How can _one_ person, an objectively _useless_ and _terrible_ person, mean so much to him that they’ve ruined all the dearest things in life? No matter how much he gets better, he’s never cured of it all. 

He’s sure by now he hates himself more than he hates them, for the sheer fact he can’t stop his comfortable life from being plagued by the looming memories. _The beast that looked like love_.

It never was.

“I asked my mom…”

Changbin snaps back as Chan walks back into his room, running a hand through his hair. It’s purple, now. He looks nice. Nicer than Changbin.

“She said you can have the RV for July.”

“Okay…” he trails, quietly finding his voice again where it had gone raspy. “Why?”

“To take Jisung to the ‘falls down south.” Chan sits on the edge of the bed and smiles. Assured. He talks like he knows everything. “Make a nice memory with him. Trust me on this one.”

And it makes Changbin seethe, because who the fuck is he to be so self-assured, to have confidence, while he’s still here in his bed like a pathetic child? It makes him snap. _“Don’t fucking tell me how to date my boyfriend.”_

Stupid, angsty Changbin rears his head. With glaring and barred teeth, full of things like envy and cynicism. He might have a lot of different sides, but this one is the bad apple set to ruin the rest of them.

Already, Chan looks frustrated. There goes Changbin, a nuisance, fucking up his friendships. Maybe this is the day he’s finally abandoned, for good.

“How about you don’t get defensive with me?” Chan suggests. He sounds gentle but there’s an underlying threat beneath his words that, for just a moment, makes Changbin’s anger retreat. His eyes don’t hide how on the inside, he probably just wants to punch Changbin into the next seven dimensions for being argumentative.

Or, how he wants to just get up and walk away. That's the worst case scenario.

Above all else, Changbin doesn’t want Chan to leave.

“I’m trying to not rush things, Chan,” he grumbles. Breathe in, breathe out, pull yourself together. He notices that Chan leaves gaps between the time each of them talk, to give that breathing room, and Changbin remembers it’s possible to be so thankful for something, and yet also so offended by it.

“There’s nothing ‘rushing’ about taking a week-long summer vacation with the person you love.” His best friend says, after a decent pause, and then the anger is alite again.

What a concept. Loving someone.

Changbin loves many people. He loves Chan and Sumin. He loves Felix, Jeongin, and Seungmin. There’s a fondness in his chest for the girls, too. 

He loves Jisung. So much that it eats away his heart.

Again, he finds himself snapping, the last thread of flesh holding him together doesn’t need to be corroded--it snaps under the pressure.

“Don’t _fucking_ remind me-”

“‘Bin.” Chan reaches for him, but he’s out the cocoon of blankets in an instant. He's a moth that’s scared of flame, and Chan is a wildfire closing in on him. Faster than he can leave the room; there’s hands spinning him around to look death in the eyes. “ _Stop it_. My mom and I love you, you love us, and we’ve been around for how long? What about Jeongin? Seungmin? Felix?”

“And how long has it taken me to be okay with that, Chan?!” Changbin writhes, but the heat is all around him. Is it fire, or is he scalded? He can’t if it’s smoke or water in his lungs but it burns and there’s steam coming out his ears. “And _Jisung_ isn’t you guys, _no one is_. Asking me to trust someone because I trust you is like telling someone they’ll like steak if they like oysters--you’re fucking stupid.”

Chan, too-good-for-this-world Chan, pretends like he didn’t even hear the insult and it makes Changbin want to cry. “That’s not what I’m asking, ‘Bin,” he almost-whispers, forcing Changbin closer and suffocating him with a hug he never asked for.

“You’re asking me to just fucking, _will_ my _whole fucking mind_ away,” he finds himself growling. Pushing, shoving Chan down onto the bed over and over again, but every time he tries to get away Chan is gripping his arms and pulling him back again. “Why can’t you just fucking _respect_ that?”

There’s no oxygen going to his head, not enough of it, and his muscles are so languid yet so taught with frustration he just gets _angrier_. 

“It’s stupid--you’re too fucking optimistic, the world doesn’t work like that! Jisung _isn’t you_ , I can’t trust him _like you_ , are you that much of a _fucking idiot_ that I have to explain that to you? _Do you ever fucking listen to me? Do you even fucking know me?_ ”

“Changbin, that’s _not_ what I’m saying.” Chan maneuvers around until Changbin’s miraculously sitting back down on the sheets, shoulders beneath firm hands, and honestly? He doesn’t even want to fight it anymore. “I know you, I do listen. Please, just breathe, okay? I’m not asking you to trust Jisung. I’m asking you to trust me.”

“That makes no _fucking_ sense.” Changbin doesn’t fight, can’t fight, just cries and argues and hopes to God that this isn’t the day Chan decides to throw him away. “I already trust you and you’re asking me to trust Jisung because I love him? You’re a fucking idiot-”

“My exact words were, if I remember: _Make a nice memory with him. Trust me on this one._ ” 

Chan’s right. 

Just like that, now Changbin’s defenses are down. It’s not even shocking how quickly he’s brought down anymore. Because of course, Chan always wins. Always.

“I _never_ asked you to trust him. I’m saying I think you should have a romantic little road trip, because I think it will be good for the health of your relationship. And you should _trust_ that I’m right.”

“You’re so idealistic,” Changbin mumbles.

“And you’re cynical.” Chan kneels on the floor in front of him and forces him to look up. His eyes aren’t angry, they’re hopeful. So different from the darkness of Jisung’s eyes, Chan’s hazel irises are easier to read than a damn picture book. “You’re going to be so mad at me for saying this, but I don’t care. You _really_ need to tell Jisung you’re scared.”

“I’m not comfortable doing that and it’ll upset him,” Changbin says and looks away. “You’re right. I _am_ mad at you for saying that.”

  
  
  


“You don’t need to explain why you’re scared.” Chan coaxes him by the jaw, and looks him dead in the eye. “Just that you are. It’s not _fair_ to him that he could fuck up without ever knowing. And it’s not _good_ for you. I know you damn well enough to know that you’re going to feel a lot more comfortable with him _after_ you tell him-”

“-And you know what? Minho always tells me how much Jisung gushes about how you’re always making sure he’s comfortable, how you never push for anything, and that’s _wonderful_ . That’s all dandy. _But_ , you’re not letting him do the same for you. You know, his comfort doesn’t come at the expense of your own. You’re important, too.”

Changbin can barely breathe through his tears, but the panic is long gone. “ _Fuck you, Chan._ ”

“I know, I’m terrible.” Chan doesn’t abandon him. He wraps him up in the blankets again and pulls him onto his lap, rocking him back and forth, and never abandons him. “The absolute worst. But hey, you’re the best, so someone needs to balance you out.”

It’s the other way around, in Changbin’s opinion. 

But Chan always wins. No matter how hard Changbin fights. So this time, he doesn’t even try.

He’s too tired to fight it, anyhow.

  
  
  


That’s the story of how they ended up here, in a nice enough hotel room, after a few nights asleep in orange sheets in a parking lot. It’s a few hundred kilometres south of their city, on the second day of July. The sheets now are white and smell like detergent, and not enough like their own body wash yet.

They’ll fall asleep when it does. For now, lamp is still on and they’re communicating in a weird language of mumbles and morse-code kisses. But it’s nice. Lovely, even. With damp, frizzy hair and their skin scrubbed red and clean.

“How awake are you?” is the first truly audible thing Changbin says, tiredness clinging to each syllable. 

And _“barely awake, what’s wrong?”_ is Jisung’s slurred, slightly-less-than-audible answer. 

That’s fine by Changbin. Perfectly fine by him.

“I’m scared one of these days I’m going to wake up and you’ll be gone,” he whispers. All the while he shifts around in the blankets to pull Jisung onto his chest, cradling him and hiding in his shirt. “I’m really afraid of being abandoned by you.”

“...’S’fuckin’ bullshi’...” Jisung exhales and whines and altogether acts too cute as he nuzzles into Changbin like he’s his nest. “...'M not gonna ‘bandon you… love you too mu’...” 

“I know, I love you too, I’m just a stupid idiot.”

It’s quiet, save for the sounds of Jisung’s heavy breathing. He looks like an angel, now, a halo of lamplight over his soft black hair, eyelashes fluttering the way stars twinkle.

When he peels his eyes open to look up at Changbin, they’re filled with galaxies.

Until he closes them again and whines into Changbin’s ribs, sounding so _small_. “...Mhm… Binnie?” 

He’s whipped. He’s so far gone it’s not even funny. “Yeah, baby?”

“...‘M sleepy bu’ le’s fuck…” 

Suddenly, Jisung’s hips start moving and Changbin is quick to roll them onto their sides, using his knee to keep Jisung’s pelvis _away_ because _what the hell_. 

“...Want you t’fuck me, love you so much…”

Any tiredness trying to take root in Changbin’s mind evaporates, replaced with images of Jisung beneath him that he can’t control. And _fuck_ , if he doesn’t want it too, but his boyfriend is half-asleep, for God’s sake. “In the morning, if you still want, okay? Not now. You’re tired.”

“Yeah, tired of waiting f’r a good time t’get fucked ‘n the ass…” Even in a haze, Jisung is vulgar and it punches Changbin in the gut as it always does. “So I decided I wan’ it t’night… want you now...”

“Baby, you’re _barely_ conscious, we can’t.”

Ever full of surprises, Jisung sits up in a flash and smacks himself on both cheeks. He’s blinking blearily down at Changbin, trying to adjust to the light, and this situation is just about the most ridiculous thing imaginable. And considering this is Jisung he’s with, that’s saying a lot.

“I…” He can’t even talk without yawning, but he’s clearly trying so damn hard to keep his eyes open. “...‘Cleaned up earlier. Really, I want it like this. Just… slow… relaxing, whatever. Like when you blew me that one time at four in the morning. Lullabies are overrated, fuck me to sleep.”

“Are you absolutely positive, or are you memeing me right now?” Changbin knows he’s being annoying, but he can’t help it. His mind is Jisung first, always. Make him comfortable, _don’t give him a reason to leave._

The younger boy hums and leans over to press the lightest, most loving kiss on Changbin’s forehead. Because he’s precious like that. “This is going to sound so cheesy, but,” he giggles and straddles his hips, “I want you to make love to me, Binnie. If you want to.”

He can’t speak, so he nods. 

His throat closes up. But Jisung’s there, kissing it, making it open right back up as he slowly slides their hips together. He doesn’t leave much room for Changbin’s sadness to take root in his stomach, making sure it’s sprouting arousal and affection before it’s too late.

Whipped. So fucking whipped.

He could die, for this. Or maybe he’s just emotional.

_“I won’t abandon you, I swear. I love you, Binnie. I love the way you draw, I love the way you talk--you’re so wise, you know? The way your face puffs up when you laugh, the way you say the smartest and dumbest things, the way you look after your friends, the way you let everyone else talk before you say something… I love all of you so much, if it’s always my choice, I’m never letting you go.”_

Changbin doesn’t cry in front of Jisung. Never.

Not until now, as they’re peeling off their clothes at a sluggish pace, and Jisung’s kissing him all over, begging for it. _“Please”_ might be Changbin’s new favourite word. _“I want you, I need you, I love you…”_

A few tears stray from his eyes every time that weighted word comes out, and every time Jisung’s lips are there to kiss them away. It’s a new kind of intense. For him, at least--watching Jisung’s lithe and soft body writhing beneath him, whimpering while also showering Changbin in praise. 

And if there’s ever a time to wax-poetic, it’s now. His mind captures every moment of those demonic eyes and angelic body both laid raw and bare, inviting Changbin out of the perpetual purgatory he wanders in his head. The white sheets are his wings and every sleepy, adorable moan is a voice in the choir. 

“You’re literally so perfect,” he breathes into Jisung’s ear, a hand on his lower back and the other gripping and slapping at one of his thighs. “Who do you belong to, babyboy?”

“ _You_ \--fuck, Binnie-- _I’m yours_ ,” the younger boy manages to say amidst his cries when Changbin sinks teeth into his shoulder. “ _Yours, I’m yours, I’m yours_ -”

He’s _divine._

When people say heavenly bodies, he doubts they’re talking about the stars. And if they are, it explains why Jisung’s touch makes his skin burn so good.

Never, in a million years, did Changbin think he’d imagine having sex with someone on an altar. But now, his subconscious is full of how he wants to press Jisung against marble and stained glass. He wants to fuck him in a house of God so that if such a deity does exist, Changbin will look him in the eyes and tell him that his angel belongs to _him_ , now.

And with the way Jisung prays the word _“please”_ , over and over, God would be a fool to fight him.

Changbin doesn’t even recognize his own voice anymore. It’s a step beyond velvet, with a growl and a knife-sharp edge. “I’m going to make you forget your own name, baby.”

“ _Yes, God, please-_ ” Jisung groans and his eyes roll back when Changbin pushes a third finger into him. “Please just _fuck me_ , Binnie, fuck me already-”

It’s smooth sailing for them, up to heaven. Lube that Changbin brought thinking it would be for his comfort ends up used for Jisung’s, and he has the most perfect picture painted in front of him as the burn fades and the younger boy lets himself go completely.

His body is lax from fading in and out of consciousness, and it lays like a figure in a Renaissance mural. Pliant, delicate, soft. Like Changbin is his maker and his grim reaper.

He plays a game to keep himself calm, one that's called: _How many words can be used to describe Han Jisung?_ The answer is somewhere in the hundreds, but by the end of the night, he’ll know.

_“Are you sure about this?”_

_“Yes, please-”_

Changbin learns new things, often.

Tonight, he learns that heaven, much like a home, can be a person instead of a place. It can be under the sheets, or in the veins lying under someone’s skin. It is not white, but a vibrant and violent red.

And it is, above all, _paradise_.

  
  


**_//_ **

**_We're cradled in the thick of it, but too ignorant to give a shit_ ** **_  
_ ** **_We set the mood, we plant the tomb and bury all the bones within_ **

  
  


Water rushes through his hair, down his face, and Changbin is _alive_.

 _“This is so fucking cool, dude!”_ Jisung screams over the crashing noises and laughs, arms outstretched like he’s trying to hug the mist and droplets. _“Holy fucking shit!”_

Not the most romantic of activities, but Chan might have had a point about this being good for them. Sure, he can barely breathe. Sure, he can barely hear Jisung even when he screams. But when he wraps his arms around the younger boy from behind and their plastic ponchos cling together, over the edge of the railing like Jack and Rose, it’s so worth it.

It’s always nice to have some water to douse the flames.

Even if it’s simultaneously humid and cold, and Changbin can’t tell what’s sweat and what’s not, he feels cleaner than ever beneath the rushing waterfall and with a bundle of sunshine in his arms.

 _“I’ve never been under a waterfall before!”_ Jisung exclaims, and the wide grin is audible in his voice. 

Changbin has been here, once before. It was the five of them--him, Felix, Seungmin, and Jeongin led by Chan. A brotherly bonding experience, the oldest had called it. They hollered and splashed each other, took wet-haired photos over the railing back up at the top, and ate so many churros Jeongin nearly puked. 

It was okay in the morning though, when Changbin woke up in the morning being cuddled at both sides by Chan and Seungmin, the other two in a tangled heap at the end of the bed, Felix’s phone still playing a YouTube playlist of jungle documentaries.

That was two years ago, or something like that. Jeongin still had braces. Felix was kissing him goodnight. Chan’s hair was cropped and red like the diagrams of internal organs they studied in high school. Life was strange in how it was settling in for Changbin, and the rushing waterfall reminded him so much of his heartbeat’s pace.

Now, it still does. For different reasons.

Chronicling his descent into love below the horizon is unprecedented for him. Looking at Jisung now, he can feel each moment where he falls a little deeper for the triangle of moles on his cheek, for his mist-soaked skin and his sunset complexion. 

“Binnie,” he giggles, spinning around in his embrace. He kisses the older boy’s cheek, wet and cold. “Look at the rainbow.”

He looks, and the sky’s colour has been replaced. It’s foggy and multicoloured. Something reminiscent of how he imagines someone’s soul might look. “It’s pretty.”

Jisung hums in agreement, but doesn’t stray his eyes away from Changbin’s face. “It reminds me of you.”

“Because it’s pretty?” he asks, raising an eyebrow and chuckling. The blush on his face deepens, and Jisung flutters his eyelashes with exaggeration.

“No. Because you’re a homosexual.”

“...Thanks, babe.”

  
  
  


It’s a double helix spiral from there, with memory lane and romance bridged together by all the things he re-explores with Jisung at his side. The deep-fried rice balls are still delicious. The buskers are just like he remembered them. Tourists are still fucking annoying.

The summer sun is as brutal as expected. It turns their skin red and forces them to abandon the sweaters they love to wear so much. Even so they don’t ditch their black-on-black aesthetic, making due with tank tops and basketball-length shorts. Maybe cropped a little shorter. Changbin likes it, and likes to pretend he’s oblivious to Jisung’s fixation towards his biceps and thighs. 

It’s okay, Changbin’s staring at him, in return. There’s cat scratches all along his arms, faded and old but permanent, and they’re the alleged reason why Minho has to pay whenever the two of them go out.

In Changbin’s humble opinion, the marred and scarred look is sexy on a body with a face as angular and cute as Jisung’s.

“Where should we go?” Jisung swings their arms as he skips along, uncaring of the clamminess of their palms. He looks comfortable in spite of the heat, and it’s difficult to relate. “I kind of want to avoid the tourist traps.”

“We can skateboard around until we find a park or something,” Changbin offers. He loves that he knows how to skateboard with his boyfriend now. It’s an incredible feeling, to be windswept _and_ swept off his feet. “Or, there’s a massive lake with a nice beach. Seungmin almost drowned there, it’s nice.”

The younger boy pauses before barking out a laugh that draws the attention of a few passersby. The colourful, village-like streets are full with a crowd, large enough that if Changbin presses his fingers to Jisung’s wrist, he’ll feel the pounding of his heart. 

They maneuver through despite it, and Jisung will insist that his medication is working as it should.

“Seungmin drowning is the deciding factor of niceness?”

“Well, no, it’s a nice beach with smooth rock areas, so you don’t get as sandy,” Changbin says, remembering fondly the way they all slid off the rocks together and into the cool waves. “And it’s a really clean lake. Seungmin almost drowning is just my most prominent memory of it.”

Jisung moves more towards his side as a group of rowdy teenagers passes by, nearly curling inward. He smiles up at Changbin, still. “Does he not know how to swim?”

Seungmin is, for all intents and purposes, absurdly good at everything. The lobes in his brain are like close friends doing a project on a mutual interest, rather than a bunch of random students who don’t know each other trying to collaborate when two are high, one is M.I.A, and the rest are genuinely trying. 

You show him things and he just gets them. It’s infuriating. But he has a weakness. Two, actually. One is his clumsiness in the kitchen, and the other is having the worst luck and doing the most stupid possible thing he could do in a situation where he’s taken by surprise.

Examples include throwing a knife at Changbin’s head inaccurately (thankfully) one time, and the other being gasping underwater. 

“He does, Chan just tried climbing on his back, but he’s heavy so it sent Seungmin right under, and he gasped.” The amount of water he puked up was insane, considering he was only submerged for maybe two seconds, given Chan’s good reflexes. “It was terrifying but in hindsight it’s funny. Chan still feels bad and cries every time I bring it up.”

“Hyunjin is a really good swimmer,” Jisung adds. “Minho is terrified of, like, everything though. Heights, the ocean, you name it. He’d drown for sure if someone did that to him.”

Changbin blinks at the new information about Weird Pretty Boy, a designation reaffirmed by the contact names he picked for him and Hyunjin. Arrogant and afraid. It’s a catchy way to describe him now. “Can he swim even a little bit?”

“Nope!” Jisung chirps. He stops for a moment to look in a store window, and then his mouth keeps running. “He sunbathes and cools off in the shallowest part. Or just stays home. One time he cried when he got pushed into a pool at a party, even though Hyunjin was in the water and caught him. He wasn’t even drunk and he just started _sobbing_.”

“That’s… kind of awful,” Changbin says, even though a blunt chuckle manages to escape from where he forced it back down his throat. “I shouldn’t be laughing.”

“Oh, no, you absolutely should be, it was so fucking funny.” Jisung’s eyes flash with the memory, and Changbin’s in love. “We locked ourselves in the bathroom and I was rocking him back and forth while Hyunjin drunkenly ranted about why you shouldn’t push unsuspecting people into the water in general. It’s probably in my top ten best parties I’ve ever gone to. We, like, _bonded_ hardcore that night.”

Crying in a pool seems more like a Hyunjin thing, but the two extra additions to his friend group never fail to surprise him. Like how Minho is a scaredy-cat and Hyunjin is a dumb blond who doesn’t really like to wear pink.

“You’re friends with idiots,” he concludes.

Jisung shoves his arm playfully. If he weren’t so sturdy, he might have bumped into the cyclist whizzing by him. “Says the one who nearly got arrested because your friends had a WalMart parkour contest.”

Slowly, as they wander, the winding streets become wider and less occupied. Jisung takes the opportunity to drop his skateboard and hop onto it, and Changbin decides to do the same. He’s liked the feeling of the wind ever since it was introduced to him back in the pastel months.

He feels free. A strange feeling, considering he’s always considered himself to be, and yet the feeling is relatively new and exclusive to when he’s aimlessly swaying on the pavement. Moving of his own volition, while his feet stay planted in one place.

Ever since he made a home with Sumin and Chan, he’s been like a bird. Specifically an awkward, dawdling penguin that thinks shiny rocks are pretty neat. He used to think he was like a horned puffin, only taking off as his wings beat down on the ocean that is city-road pavement. He’s come to realize that he’s only just become that. Running from sight down the streets was full of silent anxiety, nothing like this.

This carefree, wonderful feeling is what flight is.

And when he matches Jisung’s pace well enough for their fingers to intertwine, he soars.

“We need to never leave your friends alone with Felix and Jeongin,” is the conclusion Changbin draws. “We’ll all die.”

“I still don’t understand the thought process of seeing who can climb the shelves in the grocery aisle the fastest.” Jisung squeezes his hand, signalling him to follow, and he goes. 

Their movements synchronize as they round a corner together, coming off the main roads to a narrower one labelled with a sign.

**◄ Donovan Nature Park ▬ 1km ►**

Together, hand in hand, they glide towards it. The road is bumpier, less care is put into it, so they eventually have to let go of each other. Changbin finds there’s something cathartic in the jolts when he rides over the cracks.

“They saw that viral video of Taylor Momsen doing parkour for like, an ad,” he says. The memory is so specific in his head, of the day it all started. “And Jeongin had a _huge_ crush on her in general so next thing you know, they’re practicing parkour.”

“I mean, _mood_ ,” Jisung mumbles whilst doing a little flip on his board, after checking no cars are coming. It’s reminiscent of a squirrel hopping. “Do they still do it?”

“Oh, like all the fucking time. They taught me and Chan and Seungmin some of it too.” And Changbin’s pretty good at it, if he does say so himself. He’s climbed and jumped off of a ten-foot tall fence unscathed. “We’re a lot better at getting away from cops now when they rope us into stupid shit.”

Jisung stops at that. Not literally, but he’s motionless on his skateboard and it slows a little. “Have you ever been arrested?”

A fair question, and a bittersweet memory. Chan kept him practically pinned to the couch that night. At two in the morning, Sumin was cutting up celery and carrots with cheese dip and making garlic bread for them. Her café stayed closed the next day, and the two boys stayed home from school.

Bitter, from the initial pain in Changbin’s heart that night, and the tears down Sumin and Chan’s faces.

Sweet, from the way they reminded Changbin they love him and nothing would ever change that.

“Once, when I was in my graffiti phase in highschool,” he settles on saying. Casually, like it was just a oopsie-daisy. Maybe that _is_ all it was, he doesn’t know. “It was a night where I was angry with Chan so I wasn’t thinking as smart, and I got caught.”

“You’re _wild_.” Jisung reacts with a laugh, and Changbin supposes it’s appropriate. For someone who doesn’t know. “You should get back into that phase. I want to see your art everywhere.”

“I was thinking about doing a mural on the side of the shop, ever since the city laws on graffiti loosened up,” he admits. And it’s hardly a lie; he’d love to paint something that isn’t a small canvas or a ceramic mug. Something grand. “Maybe before next semester starts I’ll think of something.”

“Make a stylized version of your family.” The park is in sight now, so they pick up a little bit of speed. Kids can be heard laughing, in the distance. “Like, not exactly everyone in case something happens, but more symbolic.”

His words, surprisingly, give Changbin an idea. Not the one he’s suggesting, certainly a much worse idea than that, but one he can’t help but gravitate towards. Because no matter how long Jisung stays in his life, be it for a chapter or until the very last page, he wants to immortalize it.

A terrible idea given all that could go wrong.

But the happiness it would bring, even for a moment… Well…

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a genius?”

“ _You_ have.”

The park is beautiful like the city streets are, but so different. There’s a lake that shimmers blindingly, almost brighter than the actual sun. Cheers from children are carried all the way to the field adjacent to the parking lot carved out of it, full with small patches of flowers and dandelions under the canopy of trees.

It reminds Changbin of a song Jisung played for him once. Describing the feeling of falling and breaking only for your head to be cradled in the lap of your lover. And to look up at them, in their glory, with the sun through the leaves catching onto their hair. A halo hanging above them, proof that they don’t need to wait to get their wings to be an angel.

Changbin never voiced it, but he loved how it sounded in Jisung’s tone. He dreams of it on slow days with no customers, or when he sketches the forest on the outskirts of the city.

They hop off of their skateboards and mutually, silently, agree on settling under a large oak tree with plenty of shade. Jisung’s hand once again finds his as the younger boy gets excited and starts to skip towards it. 

“I sure hope I have,” Changbin laughs and pulls Jisung backwards into his chest, giving him a clumsy kiss on the side of the head. “My smart babyboy.”

Predictably, it makes Jisung coo and giggle like a schoolgirl. “I don’t think you know how fucking soft I get when you call me that.”

In the corner of his eye, Changbin notices a small little ice cream shop off the shore of the lake, and smiles. “Soft enough to buy me ice cream?” he giggles right back, leaning around to give his boyfriend a kiss on the nose and watch his smile bloom tenfold.

_“Whatever you want, Binnie.”_

  
  
  


The last night before they’re back in the city, parked on a gravel patch off to the side of the highway with partial encasement by the trees. And inside the RV, filled with soft light reflecting off the orange and teal bed sheets, Jisung will eventually curl up into Changbin’s side.

For now, though, they’re splattered across the mattress like random flicks of paint, just enjoying the company. Changbin, with his book. Jisung, with his headphones turned up.

Until they’ve rolled off his head, playing some sweet melody over a loud bass, and when Changbin looks he sees wide eyes staring up at him.

“Can I ask you something?” Jisung blurts out. He sounds sleepy and unsure. “You don’t need to answer it if you don’t want to.”

Changbin wants to kiss him so bad, but that requires moving and maintaining an awkward angle. So he’s content to bookmark his page and roll over so their heads are touching and they can hold hands.

Good enough.

_“Shoot.”_

And Changbin, for the life of him, could never understand why authors described silences as ‘pregnant’ until now. The way Jisung tilts to look at him, looking at him like he’s expecting anger, makes him feel distended and uncomfortable. 

“Just ask,” he coaxes, and watches in real time as Jisung’s eyes relax. “It’s fine.”

“Why do you call Sumin your mom?” he murmurs and looks away. Changbin feels his own heart freeze. “I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned your parents, actually…”

Right, Sumin isn’t really his mom.

Not biologically, and no matter how much he tells himself that a chosen family is more important, it hurts that they aren’t flesh and blood. They never were, never can be. His graduation photos are right next to Chan’s in her living room. But there’s no baby photos. No school photos in her albums leading up to third or fourth grade, something like that. There’s vacation photos without him in them. Like he just materialized from thin air at some point.

And no one comments on it. He distinctly remembers, when he first stepped foot into the café with her two months after settling in, what one of Sumin’s employees said. _“I was wondering when we were going to meet your other son!”_

Like he was always there. 

But he wasn’t.

“She… Well, she kind-of adopted me, I guess,” he says. He’s been adopted, formally, for a long time. But before that, it still felt like he was hers. “She’s been my legal guardian since I was eight, or something like that. I spent so much time with her even before that so I don’t really remember when it got official.”

Jisung looks up at him with pity. As is to be expected. It weirdly doesn’t bother him like it does with strangers. “Oh. Um, fuck, I’m sorry-”

“No, it’s okay. I met your parents, I should probably talk about mine, hm?”

“You don’t have to,” Jisung insists. The curiosity in his eyes says otherwise, but he’ll never push, and Changbin is grateful for that.

“No, it’s fine. I don’t really remember them, anyways,” he says anyways. It’s not even a lie, he can’t envision the faces of his biological parents even if he tries. He was always looking down around them. “I don’t think I could tell you what they looked like. I guess I blocked it all out? All I really remember is how I _felt_ , and a few other bits and pieces.”

Jisung rolls and scooches awkwardly until he’s draping himself over Changbin, turning their limbs into tangled earbud wires shoved haphazardly under the sheets.

All the while a heavy guitar plays on with racing percussion from where Jisung abandoned his own. Otherwise, the night is deathly silent, save for their breathing.

“...Are they why you said you were scared of me abandoning you…?” he hums.

“Yeah.” Another blunt truth. And being stabbed with blunt knives will always hurt more, but as long as Jisung doesn’t pull them back out, Changbin won’t bleed from it. “They just kind-of... stopped caring about me after a while. Until the school noticed, and Chan--he’s been my friend since kindergarten--noticed too and told Sumin even before that… and the rest is obvious, I guess.”

The weight of limbs is suffocating, but breathing is overrated. Changbin doesn’t like to breathe, anyways, not when he’s reminded that he was wanted up until the moment he began to speak.

“So you’ve been living with them since you were eight?” Jisung asks. Changbin corrects him. The sleepovers and evenings spent with Chan extended as far as he can remember, and Sumin _always_ packed extra lunch for him. “That’s crazy. Does… does Sumin have a husband, or…?”

Changbin snorts at that.

“No, so I’ve been officially dad-less for over a decade,” he says, and laughs. His father-figures were his math and gym teachers. “Might be why I’m so gay, who knows? I couldn’t tell you. But it doesn’t really bother me that much anymore. It used to, but as I’ve grown up I’ve realized that biological family means jack shit unless they’re part of the family you choose.”

Jisung doesn’t laugh with him. When he looks, the younger is staring at him pensively. As if trying to see him for all his cracks and scuffs. He kisses him like he’s the strawberry chapstick to heal his gnawed lips. They both taste like cola and it’s lazy, but it’s love all the same.

“...I’m sorry.”

“For what?” The wind picks up outside, rustling trees and whistling against the partially-open window. Hot summer air brushes their foreheads.

“I don’t know.” Jisung’s voice sounds as heavy as the night feels. “Is there anything I can do? To make things better for you? Or just, more comfortable?”

Is there? Changbin _is_ comfortable, is the thing. He’s glittery and vibrant all in his soul. Jisung’s spontaneity paired with his caution, his loud cries harmonized to his soft speeches, are enough for comfort. And everything Jisung does is so effortless, he doesn’t _need_ to try to make anything better.

His eyes beg for an answer, nonetheless, a kind of begging that _“no, you’re perfect”_ won’t satisfy.

“Um, I guess there is something… It’s kind-of unreasonable, though.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

And _judging_ his gaze definitely is, making Changbin crack from pressure. 

“If you’re ever mad,” he licks his lips, “Don’t give me the silent treatment, please. Or leave for a while without telling me a rough guess of when you’ll be back. It gets to me in some way... I don’t know… So just talk to me, okay?”

“On what fucking planet is that unreasonable?” The loudness right next to his ear is abrasive, and there’s something not too far from anger but not quite the same written across Jisung’s features. “Binnie, I promise I won’t do those things, okay? No silent treatment, no leaving for an indefinite amount of time. Got it. That’s easy-peasy, not unreasonable, okay?”

Jisung kisses him again, and again, forcefully sending butterflies that burst from their pupas and flood his stomach, tingling all the way down from his chest. It’s more passionate than the usual delicate fluttering and soft bites. 

The kind of kissing that when Jisung pulls away, Changbin rolls them over and makes them do it all over again. Until they can’t breathe and he only realizes he cried when Jisung wipes his tears.

“You’re a legitimate angel,” he whispers.

“Now _that’s_ unreasonable.” Can a laugh truly sound angelic? And if it can, is Jisung the textbook example? It seems probably. “I get it, you know. I have my issues from my ex, and my anxiety and all that bullshit. Your issues are just as important.”

“You sound like Chan.” Changbin rolls his eyes. 

“Please, don’t _ever_ call me your brother and compare me to him,” Jisung wheezes.

The referral to Chan as his brother so casually makes Changbin feel… tingly. Unfortunately not for long.

“Unless you have an incest kink, in which case _please_ don’t tell me. ....But if it makes you think I’m sexy, compare me to Chan in your head _all_ you want, baby.”

“Jisung,” Changbin finds himself wheezing. “Shut the _fuck_ up.”

Jisung just giggles into his neck. “Whatever you say, _big bro~_ ”

Somehow, Changbin’s convinced by now that Jisung is going to be the death of him. Not that that’s a bad thing--in fact, that’s how he wants to go.

  
  


**_// INTERLUDE //_ **

**_Don’t keep me hanging from the mouth_ **

  
  


Changbin loves the people in his life.

Sometimes he’s propelled to think of them, like now. Now, as he’s grazing over their smudged-Sharpie names in his yearbook with their class trip polaroids scattered over his sheets. Memories dance like fireflies in the darkness of his room, the lamination reflecting the lamplight.

“You’re the only one who actually misses high school,” Jeongin flops next to him on his bed. The dark sheets smell sweet from his air freshener, and the youngest clearly appreciates it. “Dude, I can’t wait to get out. And have a real ID, that’ll be great.”

“You should appreciate not having to be an adult,” Changbin mutters.

_He loves Jeongin, the newest addition to their friend group. He’s volatile, and rude in a way that’s endearing, saying horrible things with giggles and smiles. Changbin liked his humour the moment they met, from when he went from blushing young boy to a firearm constantly off of its safety lock. The sharpness of his jaw and the way his eyes can expand and shrink with his expression. He’s a fascinating kid, for certain._

“I’ll never have to be a full adult.” Jeongin yoinks a pillow from the head of the bed, curling up into a strange fetal-like position towards the small TV. It’s a hand-me-down that Changbin keeps on an old desk, connected to his Playstation. “Sumin and Chan will baby me forever.”

That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Changbin knows what it’s like, though, to be taught to do things himself and feel lost in the midst of it all. “I wouldn’t count on forever.” 

The words come out more solemnly than he’d like, and Jeongin fixes him with a look. Thin eyes narrowed to slits, and hair fluffed all over the sheets, he looks like an angry alien.

“...Is it an _emo_ night, Bin?”

The words are accusatory, so is the tone, but Changbin has long since gotten over the fact that Jeongin perpetually sounds like he’s pissed off at you. He rarely ever is. And it’s fascinating, how lovable he is despite his cynical disposition.

“I think so.”

He’s kind, so sweet and kind. It’s in the little ways he shows out, like leaving his cocoon to turn on the TV and grab the controller, booting up the Playstation for Changbin even though the older is perfectly capable of it himself.

“Well, okay, here. I’ll put on Paramore and we can stare at the ceiling,” he says, “or we can watch Boku no Hero Academia again.”

Changbin curls into his nest of pillows and blankets, tossing the yearbook to the side. He could go for some good ol’ shounen friendship magic. “I vote Boku no Hero Academia.”

Jeongin switches over to the Crunchyroll app and pulls out his phone. “Alright. I’ll text Seungmin and Felix, it’s just the girls working tonight with Chan.”

_He loves Seungmin, for how steady he is. Smart and funny, cute and sweet but with tinges of sarcasm ready to snap like mouse traps with the right moment. He’s enigmatic with a penchant for lingering stares and strange habits, superstitious conditioning, and random ecological facts. But Changbin thinks it makes him interesting, and wishes he’d talk more to know what the hell his brain is made up with on a daily basis._

So that’s their night, the four of them slopped over each other like pancakes, Changbin’s hands on Felix’s butter-soft skin and the airy texture of Seungmin’s laughter. Felix kisses all over his face until he’s a giggling mess, and comments on how he’s a real-life Todoroki. His angsty little tsundere.

_He loves Felix, simply because he’s so… Felix. Cuddly. Absurd. A theatre production retold by an excited fan in the lobby when their parents pick them up. He’s cocoa and sugar with a mushy texture that pulls apart so easy, with so much trust. It was love at first sight, for Changbin. And he’s happy his first romantic love and first falling-out of it are tied to someone as kind as Felix. It couldn’t be anyone better than him, really._

Eventually Chan joins them with the smell of cinnamon and coffee rolling off his skin with faint hints of cologne. It’s so distinctly him that Changbin can tell if he’s within up to twenty feet. 

“Cuddling without me, fuckers?” he drawls, with a betraying smile across his face. “Absolutely disgusting of you.”

“Bin was having an emo night so we’re watching anime,” Jeongin chirps from where he’s pinned under Seungmin’s weight, the older of the two half-asleep and heavy. “If you peel Minnie off of me I might cuddle you too.”

It’s easy for Chan to remove Seungmin and smother the youngest, but he doesn’t do it without smiling at Changbin and ruffling his hair first. Felix is too comfortable and attached for the oldest to provide any hug. The sentiment of a hug within the smile, though, is enough.

_Most of all, he loves Chan. Big brother Chan, perfect person Chan. Always smiling, always willing to lend a hand. There’s so much sunlight in Chan, you could place sunflowers around him outside on a clear summer’s day, and they would turn towards him. It’s a mystery how someone like him can exist, with so much to give and yet still so much to keep for himself. Changbin doesn’t like to think about the ditch he’d be dumped in if not for his brother._

Changbin’s home is his bed, when it’s filled with five bodies and his nest is evenly distributed amongst all of them. His home is anime openings and belting them out at one in the morning. His home has four names all in one--Chan, Felix, Seungmin, Jeongin…

When his home tells him it loves him, he’s never left hanging on emptiness.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoyed!! also please check out my youtube channel bc even though i just make the content for myself and my metal!skz fantasies, i want it to entertain others too~~
> 
> until next time~~


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